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John Wick Is Back With Chapter 4. And We Are All In.
“John Wick (Keanu Reeves) uncovers a path to defeating the High Table. But before he can earn his freedom, Wick must face off against a new enemy with powerful alliances […]
“John Wick (Keanu Reeves) uncovers a path to defeating the High Table. But before he can earn his freedom, Wick must face off against a new enemy with powerful alliances across the globe and forces that turn old friends into foes.”
Director: Chad Stahelski
Writers: Shay Hatten, Michael Finch, Derek Kolstad
Staring: Keanu Reeves, Donnie Yen, Bill Skarsgård, Laurence Fishburne, Hiroyuki Sanada, Lance Riddick, Ian McShane, Scott Adkins
Rated: PG-13
Release Date: March 24, 2023
We are back. Yea, I am thinking that we are back.
John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is back, and he is angry. He wants vengeance. He wants to kick out the legs of the high table. He wants to flip that table over and pin everyone around it…under it.
We know that John Wick: Chapter 4 is going to have the franchise staples. It is going to have visually stunning fights that blend all sorts of fighting styles and film genres. We know we are going to get Keanu Reeves looking disheveled and kick ass even his energy tank reads lower than empty.
With all of the familiar qualities we are looking forward to see, this first full length trailer of John Wick: Chapter 4 also poses a ton of questions for the audience to ponder.
The biggest question is surrounding a statement by Winston (Ian McShane) to Wick:
Wick: “I don’t sit at the table”
Winston: “Your family does.”
Excuse me. What? Mr. Wick, AKA the Boogeyman, has family sitting on the High Table? Who can that be? Is it a reference to his adopted family that we explored in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019) with Anjelica Huston’s character The Director? Is there another adopted brother of the Ruska Roma crime family that has climbed up the assassian network?
There are also heavy rumors on the Interwebs that John Wick is related to the high table through…marriage. We see heavy flashbacks to his wife Helen. and the first dialogue in this trailer is about him remember his wife. In John Wick: Chapter 2 we learn that Helen met John when he was working for Viggo Tarasov’s criminal family. Perhaps they met at a Tarasov event…perhaps there was a reason that Helen was there. Maybe she was the professional photographer who took their family portraits.
This fourth movie is bringing Helen back into the fold with more vigor than any Wick adventure since the original. Marriage is something that John used to escape the life, but now that same sacrament is his pathway back in. The Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) is alive, and heavily scared. He hands John a new suite and notes that it is important to be dressed to the nines when you get married…or when you get killed. I should point out that this suite that the Bowery King gives Wick has a bit of white in it…which is not something we see Mr. Wick wearing all that often. It reminds me of when we see the white under Luke Skywalker’s black outfit at the end of Star Wars: Episode VI – The Return Of The Jedi (1983).
So with the heavy question, we also have a lot of new characters to keep an eye on.
Bill Skarsgård plays the new major villain. He goes by the name of Marquis de Gramont. This French asshole (just assuming) and Wick are bound to fight in a duel it would appear. A duel that could give Wick a way out of the High Table’s eye sight. It is another way out. Wick got his escape from the killing life with Helen by finding love and getting married; two becoming out. Joining in a life together. Now in Chapter 4, his escape is two becoming one…but instead of a ring being placed in his hand, it is going to be an old style pistol.
While This Marquis de ass-hole-ness is the big bad, we are going to meet some old friends of Wick. Donnie Yen and Hiroyuki Sanada have joined the cast and all signs point to them being friends of Wick…but friends being a delicate term. There is going to be a pivot point. There is going to be something that pins them against one another. It can be like a Cassian (Common) scenario from Chapter 2.
My overall sense for John Wick – Chapter 4 is that it is setting the table. It is setting the table for a final confrontation with the High Table. With a Chapter 5 already confirmed, this movie can set up the climactic finale where Wick will face off with those who have been causing him trouble. The question and challenge for Reeves and director Chad Stahelski is to make something that doesn’t feel like a hold over. Chapter 4 still has to have the pizzazz that makes everyone one of this franchise’s movies sprint with adrenalin. We do get to see Wick wielding num-chuks. We do get to see attack dogs once again. We do get to see fantastic fight settings…including a club setting, underneath the Eiffel Tower, in a beat up car, and a very tall stairwell.
Is time running out for Mister Wick? Is the chair being pulled out from underneath him?
John Wick: Chapter 4 is coming for our throats on March 24, 2023. Just three weeks after Creed 3 comes out. Let’s get after it.
And if you need some random reading and YouTube viewing, I ranked all the John Wick fights just for fun.
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