Current Events > Hard to believe people prefer John Wick 4 over 3

(+) Yeah! (+)

Like don't get me wrong, John Wick 4 has the best action sequences of the series and the entire second half of the movie is action sequences. But between John's only lines being short and over-acted and the apparent absence of the first three movies' screenwriter, I feel like the movie falls short, even if it covers unprecedented ground.

The way I see it, John Wick 3 is the more consistent action movie. I won't shit on JW4's action sequences, they're fucking fantastic, but a lot of that movie is kind of overhyped and mid. I liked Donnie Yen and Rina Sawayama, I liked all that action shit, but stuff like Winston and the Marquis just didn't capture me because it either didn't follow through or it reminded me too much of John Wick 2 where the bad guy was a shitty, useless wanker for the sake of being a shitty, useless wanker. John Wick 3 has an interesting greater-scope villain, and the action might not be as over the top as JW4 but it's much more consistent.

Drunk me was onto something with this topic

I will never understand people going to watch an action flick and expecting some Shakespeare level of acting and greatly written plots.

John Wick 3 is the worst of the bunch by faaaaar

My main issue with JW4 is that there are so many shots of people being thrown over the shoulder. They should have cut at least 3/4 of them. Also the first act served no purpose, more than ever before you could really feel that they were just making up shit as they went along, and the overuse of bulletproof suits. Some of the action scenes, mainly the overhead building scene and the stair scene were among the best of the series, but overall it kind of felt like they were running out of logic to continue to move the franchise forward.

VeggetaX posted...

I will never understand people going to watch an action flick and expecting some Shakespeare level of acting and greatly written plots.

The first movie was pretty decent as far as story goes. I also really like the whole intrigue about this High Table stuff the series leans into. Something about the fourth movie falls off a little bit in my opinion.

refmon posted...

John Wick 3 is the worst of the bunch by faaaaar

John Wick 3 is my second favourite John Wick movie. Why is it your least favorite?

refmon posted...

John Wick 3 is the worst of the bunch by faaaaar

The scene in the knife shop is one of my favorite scenes in the series. Also in the next scene he uses a horse like a gun.

BurmesePenguin posted...

My main issue with JW4 is that there are so many shots of people being thrown over the shoulder. They should have cut at least 3/4 of them. Also the first act served no purpose, more than ever before you could really feel that they were just making up shit as they went along, and the overuse of bulletproof suits. Some of the action scenes, mainly the overhead building scene and the stair scene were among the best of the series, but overall it kind of felt like they were running out of logic to continue to move the franchise forward.

BurmesePenguin posted...

My main issue with JW4 is that there are so many shots of people being thrown over the shoulder. They should have cut at least 3/4 of them. Also the first act served no purpose, more than ever before you could really feel that they were just making up shit as they went along, and the overuse of bulletproof suits. Some of the action scenes, mainly the overhead building scene and the stair scene were among the best of the series, but overall it kind of felt like they were running out of logic to continue to move the franchise forward.

I have a similar issue with John Wick 2, where there's all these scenes of John grabbing a guy's arm and flipping him onto the ground. I agree with pretty much all of your post.

One reason why that might have been the case is because the fourth movie didn't have the scriptwriter of the first three movies. I think you can tell. The way they brush aside the whole Winston thing, for one, but the movie lacks the sort of charm and charisma of the earlier movies - it's very much just "you need to get the Fulcrum and take it to the Crucible to get the Image", just meaningless fluff words and style over substance.

The card game thing was awesome, the entire last act was fantastic, but the first half of the movie was just kind of mid and you can feel that it's missing something. Also what was up with Mr. Nobody? Did we really need an audience surrogate for the last part of the movie?

I think the sequence of events that allowed Wick to be rehabilitated in the Ruska Roma is where my brain just fried and said "this is nonsense." A ceremony with a molten lead kettle being embraced by two people at once to brand them both with a mark, but obviously it's not used for a common entry ceremony cause Wick doesn't have a brand like that, so it exits entirely for re-entrance ceremonies.

...What is this? It's entirely exists for rule of cool but there's nothing cool about it.

For me personally 3>2>1>4.

I felt like the initial trilogy got better with each film, which is something Id never seen before.

I dont dislike the 4th one. I like the Marquis and Caine. But I also feel like its the weakest of the bunch, mostly because the pacing felt very off to me.

Id have to agree, 4 did have some action scenes (like the stairs) that were really well done but I think I like 3 more. A big part of it for me is that I just do not like the blind assassin thing in an otherwise realistic world. I get that using realistic for the John Wick world is funny, but you know what I mean. That is in the realm of magical
powers for me and it just felt out of place.