Something Wick This Way Comes

John Wick 3 out soon.

ITT talk about John Wick and movies. about John Wick

Firstly: world-building is usually just another term for fan service and its therefore usually bad.

This applies here also.

But they manage to absorb the hit and keep momentum going, for the most part.

Like John Wick

Secondly: Meta casting is a good thing and can be worth twenty mins of exposition, exposition being the devil.

This applies here also and is a significant ingredient in the franchise success so far

Thirdly: Looks as good as a raven in a silk cloak shot like a George Michael video in 1995

Fourth(ly?)- hums along with the internal rhythms of a norse saga

The problem with the fishburne casting isn’t that it’s meta it’s that the scene is very bad and long and he is very very bad in it

that comes under world-building imo

all casting in this is meta casting fishburne is minor stuff

I only saw the first JW movie last week. The action is hilariously brutal.

I always feel like a cop for suggesting these films might actually be better without the tedious bits but yeah it all comes under “world building”. I believe it was our skot who said “ppl love rules I guess”

well look fanfic is demonstrably an evil in this world, not all world-building or expansion is that and some of it is good but mostly its terrible

theres enough good about the wicks not to dwell tho

having the inciting incident of these movies being the murder of the world’s most adorable puppy is maybe the best plotting decision in cinema history imo

not because i hate puppies but because it means whatever carnage wick unleashes is 140% justified

it absolutely matters, yeah

i cant even remember how the line is delivered in the first one or if im just imagining it but the main dudes incredulous "you shot john wicks DOGGGGGGG?" when he discovers why his entire org must fall is a good mood setter for the entire series.

yeah ridiculous and yeah funny but also sorry you all have to die and nobody has to care thats the way it is bub

these movies are, i think, the very best keanu vehicles because he’s a really gifted physical actor and they are stripped of almost everything which gets in the way of letting him move

yeah, sure they dont even let the poor bugger stop afaict

The second one's background/world-building were never going to live up to the whole sequence of John Leguizamo sipping on a Scotch looking weary, "he killed John Wick's dog" "oh," O'Riley from Oz as henchman all cross cut with Wick breaking up concrete to get to his guns and coins.

cant see that as world building

thats just setting a comeuppance

the worldbuiiding, such as it is, works because it’s inherently kinda silly and cartoonish, ie a good backdrop for the ultraviolent looney tunes of the action sequences

it works as far as it does because its surrounded by excellence

if the execution(s) or keanu were any less superb then it would drag the movie down into just another cynical nerd/completionista exploitation flick

Lovejoy's hotel for assassins concierged by Cedric Daniels is definitely a place I would stay

it is p much the job i see him quitting the cessmire of major crimes for, def

cynical’s an interesting word to bring up in this context - are these the least cynical action movies of recent times? like, the whole thing is an exercise in the joy of motion more than anything else - it’s like the olympics but with more neon violence and less shocking corporate corruption

they are very lean, which i think is at least aligned to non-cynical, in that you have to add in elements to get cynicism (among other things)

all centres on keanu, rly. you cam project a lot, or nothing, onto his casting/role/performance

keanu is very lean too

Tbh it’s only in the second one that the bad stuff drags the fun stuff down - the fucking barter system of hogwarts assassin guild or whatever should have as little time spent on it as possible because it’s embarrassing shit however you deadpan it. I only saw it once but it felt like 20 long minutes at a time of that stuff between action scenes when I was in the cinema. The version of jw2 that’s 90 minutes long may well be lean

Still up for pt 3 obv

david lean six sigma thats how good this is gonna be

smdh at first one; needed a shower after

if this is satire, it forgot to be satirical

is it satirical?

i wouldn't have said so.

knowing, but not winking.

if you cant appreciate it for what it is then i think abe had a line for you to use as a future guide

Started re-watching 2 last night - I think my favorite bit is when Keanu arrives in Rome and the proprietor of the local Continental asks him if he's there to kill the Pope. When the answer (after a long pause) is no, the guy smiles and says "OK then - enjoy your stay" and hands him his room key. Cracked me up in the theater; still funny now.

All of the septuagenarians in my gf's family are psyched to see 3 this weekend, q: will I need to see 2 first in order to follow the intricacies of plot

the proprietor of the local Continental asks him if he's there to kill the Pope

yeah this was genuinely hilarious

also just noticed that JW2 and JW3 feature, respectively, a genderfluid and non-binary primary cast member, which is neat!

if this is romcom, it forgot to be rom or com

if this is a musical, it forgot to have songs

if this is documentary, it forgot to be a record of real-life events captured contemporaneously

neither of these movies are satire my god

i do like to think of them as a horror movie franchise from a retired horror movie monster's perspective

(Only barely tangentially related but have you seen Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil, Brad?)

as a teen beach party movie starring frankie avalon and annette funicello, it’s a real failure iirc

TBF and IMO, the failing of most films is that they are not teen beach party movies starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello.

well, yeah

ol, yes see 2

fwiw i didn't think the first one was satire. just crap.

ol, yes see 2

How about the first one, is that necessary for the other two? I think the only way I could watch this with my partner would be to skip the puppy murder.

look

i cannot in any faith recommend anyone to not see john wick

insofar as plot matters youd have to seem em all in order but happily.....prob plot is a nice-to-have in these movies

****SPOILERS***
****SPOILERS***
****SPOILERS***

John Wick 3 as the 2016 election/Pro-Bernie propaganda

--The high table is the democratic party, obsessed with rules and norms to their own detriment
--The adjudicator is Hillary, a seasoned professional fighting a broken system just trying to keep everything normal.
--John Wick is Bernie Sanders, the rogue veteran, a little old but still a scrapper. He's already got the young fighters obsessed with him (Zero), but has to win over older voters who are set in their ways/routines (Anjelica Huston) and the women who still claim fealty to the high table (Halle Berry)
--Visiting Berrada was the DNC kneecapping him in the primaries
--Winston is Trump, whose only concern is himself and maintaining status/money/power and his HOTEL
--Lawrence Fishburne and his crew are the mobilized lower class electorate who is going to help Wick and Bernie rise to victory in Part 4 (2020)

wheres biden

sorry, meant to post that to the twin peaks thread with a fuller theory that it itself is a 2020 allegory

This was so violent it was almost hallucinogenic at times.

The least of the three but only really cause the last 10 minutes is a bit enh

This was so violent it was almost hallucinogenic at times.

seeing this tomorrow at 10:00. ANTE MERIDIEM!!

mh otm

i realize i am uncharacteristically late to the John Wick 4 party

you guys <3

Full operatic mode! whole-ass epic! oh and YES we are climbing the darkened stairway to heaven and when we get there hold on to your butts because we’re duelling under a SKY that looks like a goddamn Titian painting

cannot love this series enough
i love this one SO much

the color stories, the fact that they are mixing all these weapons in these fight sequences so harmoniously and still finding ways to catch my breath w the choreography or even just whimsical situational settings like the Arc De Triomphe traffic fight that shouldnt work but do!

ugh

amazing
so happy

donnie yen’s fight sequences in this are so great, i love the way he moves. he’s so quick, and with the cane/sword it was like he was tap dancing sometimes? lol

Just came across this amazing photo on Twitter:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FxIR9qcXsAAxemj.jpg

N.B.: the shirt is fake, but there is an argument being made that the movies represent the five stages of grief, so there's gonna have to be one more...

oh god please no

I thought part five was reported as in development just a day or two ago ...

yup. I'm just extremely anti the bad and wrong "stages of grief" framework.

Stahelski and Reeves have not changed their position on another one, regardless of what the head of Lionsgate says while promoting spin-offs

getting very weary now of people tacking coherent narratives on top of this series, it’s *supposed* to be a big dumb wishlist of cool shit they wanted to see in an action movies & stahelski really hasn’t changed his statements to that effect over the years

… overthinking it makes it so much lamer

stages of grief lol FOH

It’s coherent in that Wick’s dedication to honour, rules and revenge only create death and misery around him (leading to his choice at the end of 4) — but this is explicitly the fundamental narrative engine of the series, not a dazzling revelation found only in masters-level analysis of hidden messages

exactly

I heard there might be shooting and kicking in part 5, but at this stage I think that's just a rumor.

The five stages of kicking and shooting.

five stages of fucking your shit up

five stages of tactical fashion

five stages of gun-fu

Wait, this Finnish sort of WWII-set Wick movie came and went already?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGbr-aAnKTo

Watched SISU tonight - it’s totally OTT, gory as fuck, kinda funny, definitely fun.

I thought it was pretty slight. He's basically a superhero and there isn't enough impressive fighting technique or quality spectacle to make it feel substantial. Wish I hadn't bothered.

i’ve been down a Buster Keaton rabbithole lately & read a great interview w Chad Stahelski and critic Dana Stevens (author of Keaton bio “Camera Man”) about the silent film/Keaton parallels in John Wick

https://slate.com/culture/2023/03/john-wick-4-keanu-reeves-buster-keaton.html

Some woman in the seat across from me on the airplane watched this twice in a row so, so did i. Worked without any sound obviously

the stairway scene with the falling definitely had its parallels

Yet more Wick:

https://variety.com/2025/film/news/keanu-reeves-john-wick-5-cinemacon-1236353834/

“In both animation and the world of ‘John Wick,’ the possibilities are endless. And there is no ‘John Wick’ story fans are clamoring for more than the ‘Impossible Task,'” Fogelson said.

hands up who has been clamouring

*clamours*

Yeah, I could clamour

but have you specifically been clamouring for “The Impossible Task”?

i swear officer i havent clamored even once

I keep looking at that 2:50 runtime for Wick 4 and moving on. That's too much Wick!

Eh, 50 minutes of that is a single awesome fight up a set of stairs.

John Wick: TIT

ok lads

Chow Yun Fat is in that Yen directed one, I hear? It'll probably suck but man would I be happy to see that guy again.

giving Donnie Yen a movie in any franchise sounds like a fun idea

I appreciate how this review (from one of the site's most, how to put it, slavering fanboy types in general) spends almost its entirety backing into an apologia for liking something because it's brainless/brilliant action trash in that I imagined unperson shouting in response "YOU DON'T HAVE TO APOLOGIZE FOR THAT."

flagging you for linking to an article by that individual

A risk I ran, granted.

I kid, but his writing definitely has not changed much

One thing that struck me about Peter Bradshaw's review in The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/jun/04/ballerina-review-ana-de-armas-racks-up-the-kills-as-she-pirouettes-into-john-wick-spin-off

Is that it doesn't read as if the author has actually seen the film. It reads as if it was synthesised from a plot summary and a couple of trailers. The first paragraph tells us that it's a John Wick spin-off. The second has some unfunny non-jokes and a suggestion that the author has seen some of the publicity material. The third paragraph is a plot summary, except it doesn't even describe the plot, it just describes the basic scenario. The fourth wraps things up.

It's just curiously empty. But Bradshaw presumably had enough time to see the film, and would have been invited to a press screening or at least given a digital copy. He would have much less pressure to synthesise the review from publicity materials, and yet that's how it reads. If he was trying to make a satirical point about the film's lack of substance it doesn't come across.

I mean, there are essentially only three sentences about acting, all about the lead actor ("(de Armas) proves again she can do action", a bit about switching magazines, "de Armas mixes things up and she is a smart screen presence"). Are any of the other actors effective? No idea. Are there any good lines? No idea. What is the actual plot? Dunno. Is the film visually inventive? I can't tell.

I realise film reviews aren't The Guardian's core competency, but I could have generated a more entertaining, more thorough review myself solely from re-watching the Cuba sequence in No Time to Die and reading Ballerina's TVTropes page. If anyone who works for The Guardian is reading this, I'm prepared to undercut Peter Bradshaw by £10p/a. You'd get better content, more of it, and you'd save £10 a year, for which you could buy a really nice large cod to go with your chips. Think it over.

I didn’t click on Ned’s link but “the-incredible-action-in-ballerina-masks-how-dumb-the-rest-of-it-is-2000607943” — o rly for a film where Chad Stahelski allegedly came in and reshot all of the action sequences after Len Wiseman turned in his cut?

Roffle.

i realize some of its timing & whatever but having Wiseman direct it in the first place just seemed doomed to me, like even on paper I dont want to see it!

I appreciate how Stahelski himself was also "The Continental? Fuck that."

https://gizmodo.com/like-us-the-director-of-john-wick-didnt-love-the-continental-2000611816

<3

“Bernardo Bertucci or Andrei Tchaikovsky”

Perhaps he's AI

so glad I didnt waste my time on the The Continental

I'm distressed to find out that I've seen both of Len Wiseman's previous non-Underworld films. I mean, a plane journey was involved in both cases..

All of this reads much funnier and better when I substitute Frederick Wiseman for Len Wiseman. Better movies too

can confirm recommendation way upthread - SISU is great (and currently streaming on Peacock)

very much a spiritual relative of Wick, on a much smaller, far more pared-down scale