Carl Pincombe

1 star is probably too harsh, 2 star was probably too generous. I'm a massive John Wick fan, and an even bigger cheesy 90s Keanu fan, but Mr wooden legs should have left the franchise as a trilogy. Whilst the action has always been over the top, cmon.. it's John *@+in Wick! It was never too over the top. But chapter 4 had me leaving the theatre feeling considerably dumber than when I entered. To say it's just stupidly over the top would be understatement. 10s upon 10s of highly skilled special forces/bounty hunters/ mercenaries all gunning for the same character and he spends 2hours and 25 minutes without a single scratch on him. The gore factor from the bullets etc has been all but completely removed.. in one scene the same character gets stabbed maybe 14 times yet doesn't have a spot of blood on him . The vehicle scene resetting ruined what could have been a decent part of the film with the Paris section seeing John crash a car in to a van, and roll the same car without it taking any damage whatsoever.. A far cry from the first two films where his car, and every other vehicle featured, remains totalled for every scene it's featured in. There's a scene in Berlin at a nightclub when John beats a guy presumably to death with his bare hands, yet somehow he gets straight back up and his face doesn't have a single mark on it. The 30 feet falls on to cars, concrete stairs etc, and Mr Nobody not requiring a single stitch to his hand that was literally cut in half are the sorts of things that make it almost impossible to become invested in this "action" film. For me the franchise was ruined when bullet proof suits were introduced, as now even with 300 people shooting at you if you just lift your suit jacket collar up to your face, your immediately running God Mode. Whilst John is still excommunicated he's still somehow able to travel freely from country to country with no trouble from anyone at all, yet the moment he arrives in Paris every one on the planet that owns a gun immediately remembers the guy has a £20m bounty on his head. I wish Nobody and his dog were introduced properly and had some kind of story, which would have helped flesh out the 2hrs and 40 mins of otherwise mind boggling nonsense. It's not all bad, some of the fight scenes where really well done, and the top down section clearing the (I'm assuming an) old hotel were cool. There was more than one occasion I had thought about leaving the cinema halfway through, I felt I had to stay just incase something happened that made it worth watching, but honestly it just never happened. Nobody can kill the boogeyman.. except a blind man with a walking stick 🤦🏻‍♂️ the same John wick that once killed 3 men with a f***ing pencil