Last Friday I went to the rehearsal of John Wick 4. It was fun. Coincidentally, it was the fourth time I go to the cinema in 2023. I blame that damn burnout!! So, I want to believe that some kind of cosmic conjoinment was the culprit of me wanting to return to my dear Movie Corners after this.
I have a very strong opinion on the John Wick movies, and this fourth entry is no exception to it. Whilst usually pure action films make me want to yawn and take a nap -I still remember my former cinema forum teacher saying that audiences of yore would complain that post-90s action flicks are too slow-, this series has other qualities that charm me. And these are purely aesthetic and sensorial.
Perhaps you remember my text on the Matrix Trilogy, where I commented that this series was conceived in a pivotal time where violence in media was a scorching topic – and that it took part in an aesthetization of the issue as an answer. I find it absolutely charming that the same effect is achieved, in my humble view, on the other famous series starring Keanu Reeves. The John Wick films are internationally known as being a pinnacle of violence. But, what a violence! It reaches a level of excess that surpasses any morally tolerable digestion, reinitializes itself and could further incur the risk of becoming too boring if not for its style. The choreographies, the creativity of the fights and action scenes, their length, the always-present-pulsation-of-épater-the-audience-by-any-mean-possible… these are, and can only be, just the spawn of a crazily tasteful mastermind.
John Wick ultimately looks back to the audience, placing itself in one of the most basic and undoubtely sad parts of our reptilian mind. Violence is intrinsecal to the human being. Unlike the vegetable kingdom, just chilling around with Earth – they verily conditioned our planet to their thriving in the most ancient times -, we animals, in a sad ironic way, survive just by perturbing and damaging. The human verily delights themselves in violence. Think about the ancient Roman gladiators, fighting sports, video games, Battle Royales of any kind that are always one of our favourite past times to look at. Why is Joel Schumacher’s Falling Down so satisfying to watch? John Wick is verily conscious of this, and just gives it to us like no other piece of fiction can.
And arguably, this effect is reached thanks to the superb aesthetic setting, on another hand. Basing itself in the iconic epic archetypes, the journey of our hero is set in a contemporary, sometimes brutalist, sometimes neo-classic, comic-book-hyperbolic universe of hitmen where architecture, colour and light conform a mesmerizing mesh that connects every single script detail in a perceivable space, filled with the aroma of honour and gusto. With some touches of hemoglobine and burnt steel, of course.
John Wick 4 stays loyal to the end to the premise of the series. The solid, monolithic start of the first movie, the expansion and perfection of the second entry, the excess and excitement of the third, are aunated in the plentiness, creativity, roundness and satisfying grand finale that is the fourth. Because, following kabbalists, 3 is a perfect number, but 4 is a complete cipher.
And if this text is too crazy for you – Keanu Reeves is enough a reason to give it a chance. Nuff said.