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 new foes.

In 2014 stuntman and action performer Chad Stahelski decided to try his hand at directing with a modestly budgeted action film called John Wick. And the very idea of action cinema would change forever. Bringing together a thrilling narrative, compelling and conflicted character, brash action, epic gun-fu combat, dazzling production design and just straight-up cinema cool. John Wick was something else and now 9 years later audiences are primed and ready for John Wick: Chapter 4. And this is a film that delivers everything you could want and more. A nearly three-hour epic of absolute action mayhem, John Wick: Chapter 4 is a globe-trotting adventure packed together with thrilling intensity as super-assassin John Wick (Keanu Reeves) sets out to end the High Table’s grip over him, with bullets and bodies quickly piling up.

What audiences witness in John Wick: Chapter 4 is a filmmaker in Chad Stahelski working at the top of his game and every facet of this production comes together. Narrative, character, world-building, costuming, and some of the craziest, most-insane action set pieces that will absolutely take your breath away are all present. Stahelski works with his most lavish canvas yet thanks to JW4 taking audiences from New York to Japan, Berlin to Paris, and it’s utterly explosive. The volume is cranked all the way up on JW4 and as he’s come to do Stahelski continues with his ‘action as narrative’ story mechanism which he has developed through his work with 87Eleven. From the moment this film starts audiences will be utterly flawed and thrown backwards in their seats, and the force of this picture doesn’t let up for a second.

John Wick: Chapter 4 is an utterly astounding visceral experience and much praise must be lauded to acclaimed cinematographer Dan Laustsen. Turning his camera lens to a sepia-focused colourway, John Wick: Chapter 4 is stylistic and slick, and in the darkness of the cinema you’re transported to the high stakes, faced-paced, all-or-nothing world of John Wick. Working in conjunction with production designer Kevin Kavanaugh and costume designer Paco Delgado, Stahelski and Laustsen give each location and set of characters their own identity, and this filters through the work. From the burning sepia oranges of the streets of Paris to the heightened purple neon of Osaka, to the grimy and fierce reds of Berlin, these visual singularities elevate the setting of the film. Production and costume design also have their part to play and JW4 is an extremely lux piece of cinema to behold.

Hollywood veteran Keanu Reeves is once again front and centre as John Wick. Regarded as an unkillable and strikingly deadly assassin who hunts his prey from the shadows, Wick has a bone to chew this time and god help those who want to see him put down. With a partnership that stretches back more than twenty years, Reeves and Stahelski have a fantastic working relationship and it shows through the performance that is delivered on screen. While Reeves has shown that he’s adept when it comes to the run and gun, JW4 delves deeper into his character, and more importantly his purpose as a man. Themes of loyalty, family and legacy run deep in JW4 and we find Wick at his most thoughtful, contemplative and aggressive as he wages an all-out war against the High Table. While he may have started off as a typical noir anti-hero, John Wick has developed into the single most interesting protagonist of modern action cinema and this is all down to Reeves and his layered and stoic performance.

It’s a who’s who of names this time for JW4. Leading the hunt for Wick is Bill Skarsgard as the Marquis de Gramont, the arrogant and caddish leader of the High Table whose sense of grand hubris puts him close to the fire; Donnie Yen makes a complete 360 turn as blind assassin Caine, whose deadly skills rival Wick’s and whose complexities and comedy will win audiences over; Hiroyuki Sanada bring a Samurai sense of gravitas and respect as Yuki Shimazu, and he shares a close bond with Wick; Shamier Anderson is the hot-shot up and comer known as the Tracker who sees Wick as his ticket to the big time; Clancy Brown brings a menacing and intimidating presence as the High Table’s judge, The Harbinger; Natalia Tena turns up the heat as feisty Russian gang lord Katia, the half-sister to Wick; and martial arts legend Scott Adkins is thoroughly unrecognisable and outright crazy in his performance as the maniacal Killa. Add in support from Laurence Fishburne and Ian McShane and you’ve got something very special with JW4.

Be prepared because John Wick: Chapter 4 is a rush. Stahelski and his team of mad-genius stunt performers go all out with this fourth entry in the franchise and it makes for a manic watch. Prepare yourself for more guns, more blades, more explosions, more jujitsu and kickboxing and aikido and straight up smash mouth fight scenes, a scene where Reeves unleashes his inner Bruce Lee in a brutal nunchaku beatdown, gun-fu madness with bullets being sprayed all about, a very pissed off Belgian Malinois with serious bite and a car chase-fight scene shake up through the streets of Paris that makes for one hell of a final act. The action of JW4 is action as art, and this dance of pandemonium will make you sit up and take notice. JW4 is an example of the action genre transcending to high art. And it’s one hell of a watch. And if you manage to catch this one in IMAX, watch out, because it goes big on the BOOM.

John Wick: Chapter 4 is one of the single greatest cinema experiences I’ve ever witnessed. It was an utter event, and from beginning to end I was totally enwrapped in its detail, intensity, passion and just sheer entertainment excellence. The cinema screen exists for a film like John Wick: Chapter 4 and it’s an experience you won’t forget.

Image: StudioCanal

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Legendary hitman John Wick (Keanu Reeves) must fight his way out of New York when a $14 million contract on his life makes him the target of the world’s top assassins. Being declared as excommunicado after killing D’Antonio on Continental grounds, the chances of survival have never been thinner for Wick. With the aid of old allies, John seeks to turn the tide.

In John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum we once again see the return of Hollywood legend Keanu Reeves and his director Chad Stahelski, and the result is pure genius. Ever since 2014’s John Wick, Stahelski has raised the bar for what is capable in action cinema and here in John Wick: Chapter 3 he pushes his craft even further with some of the most awe-inspiring action set pieces ever committed to film. Balancing both a growing scope of epic proportions with a film that is still uniquely intimate, and the result is a mind-expanding cinematic feat that really opens your eyes.

Continuing with his ‘action as narrative’ philosophy, Stahelski and his team at 87Eleven elevate the action of John Wick: Chapter 3 to a whole new level, while again using it as a way to explore the narrative and character of their lead character. Broken, bloody and with the reality of excammunicado knocking at his door, Keannu Reeves’s legendary assassin John Wick is very much in survival mode and the audience gets to see him in a different light. While in the first two films the character was very much in a proactive state of mind, here he finds himself in a reactive persona as he is doing everything he can to simply survive. Stahelski understands the thriller genre intimately and he uses a tight time setting and ticking clock to really push his lead character to the very edges of his limits and this allows the director’s action orientated mind plenty of creative freedom to dream up some awe-inspiring action sequences.

Once again Keanu Reeves pulls on his jacket, notches his tie and lock and loads as legendary assassin John Wick and he’s really up against the wall this time. With increasing enemies all around him, the Baba Yaga is forced into some very compromising situations and it allows us to see a new side to the character. In this film, we see the conflict around him tearing at his internal character, especially at the love he shares for his deceased wife Helen (Bridget Monahan), the one true person who ever allowed him any chance of freedom and this really creates some intense conflict for the character. Again Reeves is just a consummate professional on-screen and he really throws himself into the craziness of the action that explodes around him, and his actions will literally make audiences jump out of their seats.

Joining Reeves in John Wick: Chapter 3 is Halle Berry, and damn does she make one hell of an impression on audiences here. Her character of Sofia, a dangerous and capable assassin is pulled into Wick’s journey of mayhem and she is absolutely none-so pleased as having to put her life on the line to help Wick. This of-course sets the stage for a very interesting character dynamic between the two of them and Berry absolutely proves herself as Reeves equal when she gets on the trigger. Double-tapping adversaries at an alarming rate, Berry’s Sofia is possessed of cat-like agility as she does close-quarter battle alongside Wick in what I must say is the film’s most exciting sequence. And like Reeve’s Wick she’s also an animal lover and is joined by a pair of ferocious Belgian Malinois attack dogs whom see unleashes for lethal effect. You couldn’t find an actress more fitting to fight alongside Reeves, and Belle really goes for it in every way possible.

Also returning to the fold for a third appearance is the quintessentially charismatic Ian McShane as Winston, the head of the New York Continental, and one of Wick’s last true friends, and he will have to pay for his friendship this time. McShane’s elegant performance has long been one of the best parts of the John Wick franchise and his position as Wick’s confident and advisor takes an all the more interesting turn this time around. With each new installment the John Wick franchise finds new ways to develop its characters further, and in John Wick: Chapter 3 it’s interesting to see how John’s friendship with Winston effects both men in this very dangerous and unpredictable world that they both operate in.

John Wick: Chapter 3 also gets some great new blood this time around in the form of both Mark Dacascos and Asia Kate Dillon. Dacascos, a martial arts cinema icon stars as Zero, a lethal Japanese assassin whose Ninja ferocity and skill with a katana makes for seriously good cinema. Brutally efficient and lethally focused, Zero makes for a great test of John Wick’s skills and watching Dacascos and Reeves go up against one another is an absolute treat for action fans. Then there’s Asia Kate Dillon who stars as The Adjudicator, a corporate and clinical box ticker whose managerial agenda and haughty arrogance makes for a despicable villain and Dillon really gets under your skin.

You wanted action. You got it. And man oh man is it something out of this world. With each successive addition to the John Wick franchise, Stahelski and his team have elevated the bar, and here they reach a whole new level. You’ve got gun fights, knife fights, tomahawk fights, dog attacks, a lethal cocktail of jiu jitsu, judo, karate, kick boxing, pencat silat, arnis, and mixed martial arts, a stunning motorcycle chase scene that dials up the word EPIC to a 1000 and a horse chase-fight combination scene that destroys all expectations. In short, Stahelski packs his film with everything and more and you’ll be salivating with the action that explodes on screen before you. With so much action to choose from there’s something for everyone and as for the sequence that really got me going I have to choose Reeves/Berry’s double-team close quarter battle scene as my favourite. It was just out of this world! Action fans, you will not be disappointed with John Wick: Chapter 3.

Along with elevating the action of John Wick: Chapter 3, the setting also gets a major upgrade and we find ourselves leaving New York for the fair shores of Casablanca. It’s a location and a setting that completely lit my heart on fire, first for it’s homage to Bogart’s classic role in the eponymous 1942 film, a hallmark of the film noir genre, but also for the new environment that we find Wick in. This new cultural setting is packed full of colour and atmosphere, and the Casablanca Continental is a mythical location that you’d definitely want to spend the night at. Alongside Casablanca, there’s also the grandeur of New York City and as always Stahelski and his team turn it into one hell of a playground for their bogeyman hero.

If you’re searching for some beauty amongst the carnage then you’ll most definitely find it here, because as an execution of the cinematic art form John Wick: Chapter 3 is gorgeous. Bathed in neon light and shot with a eye for high sheen, cinematographer Dan Laustsen crafts a beautifully rendered piece of cinema. His evocative use of light and shadow, and strongly defined compositions really keep you in the centre of the action and the resulting images have tremendous power. Laustsen also defines his style for each location with New York again taking on his hyper-masculine neon edge, while his focus on Casablanca results in a more earthy and rustic pallette. The costuming and props are again out of this world, and Reeves has quite the arsenal to play with this time and the use of Vivaldi’s ‘Winter’ is the perfect final touch.

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum is an opus of action cinema and is one of the most fun times you’re ever likely to have in the cinema. Your adrenaline will really get dialed up with this one and Keanu Reeves turns in one hell of a performance. Action cinema simply doesn’t get much better than this.

Image: Studio Canal

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The all-new trailer has arrived and it is out of this world cool. Check it out IMMEDIATELY:

Here’s the full synopsis.

Still on the run following his assassination of a member of the High Table in The Continental, and with a $14 million global contract on him, John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is excommunicated from every Continental service, which forces him to fight his way out of New York City with the help of a hitwoman named Sofia (Halle Berry) who still believes in his trust.

Kicking off with a lightning pace, the trailer throws audiences right into the action of John Wick 3, as Wick is forced into a desperate fight to escape New York City and the reaches of the vindictive High Table whom he has incurred the wrath of. Armed only with his wits and any type of weapon he can lay his hands on, you can bet that the action is gonna run fast here.

Building on the previous trailer, this new trailer adds to the extensive worldbuilding that we’ve come to expect from director Chad Stahelski, and fans of the franchise get a look into the film’s new characters who include Halle Berry as Sofia, a dangerous hitwoman who makes for an uneasy ally with Wick, Mark Dascascos as Wick’s ruthless pursuer and the High Tables chief enforcer Zero, along with Angelica Houston’s scheming overseer The Director, who shares a long history with Wick.

Along with the burgeoning world of The Continental and the High Table, Josh Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum also packs a considerable punch when it comes to action with a mountain of uncontrollable action scenes that is going to send your adrenal gland into overdrive and deliver you one hell of a rush!

Get ready for something extraordinary when John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum arrives in cinemas on May 16.

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The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that Stahelski is set to come aboard as the film’s director and is currently searching for a new writer to help him bring the project to life. “I’ve been a huge fan of the original property since I saw it in high school,” said Stahelski. “Such great themes of immortality, love, and identity are all wrapped up in such colorful mythology. I can’t think of a better property that gives the opportunity to create interesting characters, mythic themes and action set pieces.”

The 1986 cult classic starred Christopher Lambert, Clancy Brown and Sean Connery, and followed the adventures of a highlander named Conor MacLeod, who learns he is immortal and must battle over time for a distant and mysterious prize.

A remake has been in the works since 2008 with directors such as Justin Lin, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and Cedric Nicolas-Troyan attached, while the project itself was at one stage set to go with Ryan Reynolds as McLeod and Dave Bautista as The Kurgan.

With Stahelski at the helm we could get a very interesting new adaptation, and we’ll certainly be keen to see how the project evolves.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

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