John Wick

"The Marquis's also gonna hire an old friend of John's. This guy named Caine."

"What's his deal?"

"He's got a cane."

"That makes sense."

I loved the subtle bit of meta-humor when John first sees Nobody.

"... I don't know you."

The third and fourth movies have missing pieces of the puzzle. The third does have an urgency and weight while the fourth though it waits until the end does have more of a payoff in the weight of what's happening too. Second is a really good follow-up that yeah, is very vague about why Santino taking over is bad even though you know it definitely is while the Marquis on the other hand being so coldly frivolous with both wealth and human life in his high position of power would indeed be more of a viable threat for that reason—and that he as someone who's new money would be that psychotic is also scary too.

(2) That was my favorite part of that film. Really establishes Nobody - every deadly assassin is somebody John knows. Wait, who the hell is this guy.

Edited by FOFD on Mar 22nd 2024 at 8:30:15 AM

Wick 2 while good, is most remenber for setting up what is to come because the idea of Wick actually going against the assasin world is too jucy to let it go, 3 is good but people probably think it was going to end everything and then...it isnt. Granted I will said 4 have the best set up fight like dragonshell sequence and Wick climing the stairs(really his worst idea to make the duel there). it was nice while just crossing the line into bit a little silly.

So I watched Chapter 4 on Amazon Prime and goddamn is it a slog. Nearly 3 hours of everyone having a stoic-off man of iron competition.

I had thoroughly spoiled myself on it though so that probably didn't help.

They must have really like the climax of 3 to do it all over again as the opening third of 4. There's only so many times in a row I can watch John leg wrestle and headshot someone. Even throwing in some nunchucks doesn't change it that much.

There was so little there I'm struggling even to articulate about it.

I feel like it peaked at 2 and could never deal with the consequences of it properly. 3 at least managed to give sufficient weird and wacky variety in it's action scenes but 4... felt like a drag.

It all could have been a lot tighter to no loss. Like this rambling review!

Yeah as much as I loved it, you're 100% right - it was a bit too long. I love the John Wick movies but yeah your critiques of 4 I honestly can't refute. I'm kinda glad the ending was what it was, because the serious was getting a bit thin-stretched.

I enjoyed it in theaters because you know Pow Pow Pow, Pow Pow, dialogue, Pow Pow Powpow wow Act 3 already?

I can understand disliking the lengthy action setpieces of 4. The idea of John having nothing else narratively noteworthy to do except fight High Table flunkies for 3 hours feels meta.

Honestly I kind of hope it's the end for John Wick's story, not Keanu appearing as him once in a while but definitely the proverbial "blowing out the candle on John." There is absolutely no way to succeed that stairway fight.

Nobody was honestly the part that got me the most hyped.

I hope they stop trying to make this into the MCU and let him wipe out the damn High Table.

I haven't seen The Continental, so maybe we see some more internal corruption, but they seem pretty resasonable to me once you've killed enough of their staff.

Yeah. While I really enjoy the fourth one, they shouldn't have had so much of the movie building up to the race to the duel. Had it focused way more on that with the long running time, it could've been very tightly paced—even at almost three hours.

4 is basically the story of 3 but turned up one notch higher: John is looking for allies to help him fight his way out of a never-ending war with the High Table. The new characters are cool enough, but the lack of notable returning characters from 2 and 3 (Cassian, The Director, Sofia) makes it feel kind of empty as supposedly John's last dance.

Yeah the movie had a weird feel to it. On one hand, it's the finale. All the filmmakers are missing are big neon flashing letters saying Grand Finale. On the other hand, the lack of connections to the last 3 films just makes it seem like another day. I get the overall point though: For John, victory is impossible. For every high ranking goon or Table Member he kills, they'll just wheel out another one and send him on another adventure since the organization appears to have infinite manpower, reach, resources.

But I can't shake the feeling that the task of destroying the higher ups will be settled in a spin off.

Edited by Codafett on Apr 5th 2024 at 9:40:30 AM

As displayed with Santino in Chapter 2, The High Table while it has numerous measures and precautions in place to deal with anything, for someone who's an insider? It's a very easy system to abuse and manipulate to your liking. They'd never admit that John did them a favor by killing him.

I never felt like the High Table had enough of a Presence for me to fully buy into them as villains.

I kinda wish they could've had a Metal Gear Solid 2 esque moment like the Patriots had at the end of that game. A moment where they're just so completely in control and smugly untouchable from every possible angle that it actually pisses you off and just makes you want to see them get annihilated, but the story refuses to give it to you, at least for the time being.

I don't see the John Wick franchise existing without the High Table, they aren't just the top villains but their influence on the setting is omnipresent. The High Table represent the coins, rules, pagentry and everyone knowing each other. It would be like removing Starfleet and The Federation from Star Trek, there might be an interesting story to tell but the identity of the franchise would be lost.

1) Then we'd have people complaining they're an Invincible Villain.

2) They control everything - Bowery King, John, and Nobody excluded - going on in the world. The neverending tide of armed goons they keep throwing at John, the reputation that makes law enforcement irrelevant to them, etc.

3) The only people who've defied them did so carefully. Wick couldn't get rid of them completely. Sofia and Cassian both were subject to their rules.

4) The scene with Winston and he works under the table. He's got this much power and doesn't really stand a chance unless John's on his side.

5) That. The High Table are not Thanos or the Dark Wizards from Harry Potter. Without them the John Wick setting loses its interest.

John will never eliminate them without killing the franchise.

Edit: Nevermind. I think there's some part of me that just fundamentally doesn't GET John Wick.

Edited by GNinja on Apr 6th 2024 at 1:35:17 PM

John Wick's universe is weird in how this guild of assassins is so omnipresent, it seems like in every corner there's someone related to them. But only in the fourth they got overboard regarding the High Table's inner workings and such, with the plot parts being what dragged on rather than the amazing action scenes. The Continental was alright, but I barely remember it, showing how focusing on these parts is not as relatable and memorable as John's struggles. Which is why is I'm not so keen on a John Wick 5, except maybe a prequel about him before retirement - the ending of 4 works better if he actually died a free man after winning his final showdown with the High Table, a sudden "Faking the Dead because he still needs to dismantle the High Table" would only cheapen a great conclusion for John's story.

I feel like an easy way to deal with the High Table as a threat is through John's final rampage causing a civil war within its ranks. While it won't die anytime soon, it'll be licking its wounds a lot more, causing a power vacuum where a less classy class of criminals takes its place. From there, there'd be an uneasy Enemy Mine of sorts between the protagonist (who may or may not be John) and whichever faction the plot deems as the 'right' one.

Well I mean John's dead so, not much harm him destroying them could do to the franchise. I disagree entirely that getting rid of the High Table would take the fun out of the setting, if anything connecting the HT to everything makes it less fun by default. There's no shame in having multiple factions or even independent agents like Percy from the first movie.

The point of the High Table is that they have this undeniable prestige, power and presence that is Necessarily Evil to some: strict and sometimes unreasonable rules that are more to the benefit of themselves and yet the whole system is predicated on them squashing anyone who defies them and keeping that control because then chaos otherwise erupts. We see how they did nothing about Santino because as unethical as he was and how dangerous he was while doing so, he worked within the rules even if very blatantly loopholing them at the same time (like using his marker for force someone to kill Gianna so he could take her place when he otherwise wouldn't be allowed to do that)—while John who killed him to stop him from doing the things he was doing DID violate a rule to do so. As uncompromising and vicious as the Marquis was, he was not only their last resort in trying to get John—to the point that they put using him off for as long as they could, they also trusted him to do whatever it took according to their standards to get the job done as well (and they expected his ruthlessness would be a guarantee of efficiency too).

Santino and the Marquis both only respected the letter of the rules and not the spirit while John killing the former violated the writing on the wall—though he later was smart enough to take out the latter in a way that respected the rules too though, so there you go, lesson learned. The High Table for wanting order and peace is also very elitist and pretentious though—thus why they indeed call themselves the High Table after all.

Edited by futuremoviewriter on Apr 7th 2024 at 3:05:12 AM

It's very much Law vs. Chaos rather than Good (or, well, Gray) vs. Evil.

I mean I would assume overthrowing the High Table would be the end.

Like Return of the Jedi.

But the thing is that the weird culture would continue even without them. The Bowery King, Hotels, and so on exist not because of the High Table but under them.

I guess I also feel like John Wick 1 was awesome without them.

Would there be Continental hotels without the High Table?

Their main feature is being the one safe space where no business can be conducted - but the only way that's maintained is by the High Table making bloody examples of anyone who violates that rule. Without that sort of muscle behind them, "no business on Continental grounds" isn't going to be so sacred.

Plus, the High Table are also, presumably, the ones who mint all those gold coins.