quote:

Originally posted by LastCubScout:
Give me The Raid or Dredd or the end to Rambo 4. I like my violence a little meaner and more visceral.

Dredd was excellent. Went under the radar, never got the attention it deserved. Should have been a sequel. Maw-Maw Clan

My son wanted to see JW4. So we streamed the first three, and then went to see it. It was comical. I guess you have to kind of put yourself in the Marvel mindset (utter suspension of disbelieve despite the massive amount of evidence).

So it goes. It was fun to be with my son. The theater was gross, with filthy seats. Not a surprise. $28 bucks at a matinee with two cups of corn syrup water. But what should I expect when they have three employees and 10 theaters, ad in ours, there were only four people total. Weird economics. The parking lot looked like a Beirut war-zone. Cratered and desolate.

I saw it today. Forty five minutes into it, I was checking my watch, because I realized they were just re-doing the fight scene from the end of 3 in the top of the tower. Nearly identical set with a less interesting fight. Nine arms bars in, and I was bored. By the time Scott Adkins had his turn with it, I was honestly over the film. There's a point where not letting the plot get in the way of the action has diminishing returns. I was laughing at the film about the fifth or sixth time Wick got hit with a car in less than three minutes. The next dozen times, I was laughing harder. The duel? Silent theater with a few dozen people maybe, and I was trying very hard to keep from losing it in side-splitting laughter at the ridiculousness of it all. Donnie Yen couldn't save this one, and it would've been better had he not been blind. Oh, and was it just me or did the stunts look a whole lot sloppier? The bad guys were beyond compliant. I've heard it said that Hong Kong film scene stunt guys call the lulls in these choreographed fights where they're delaying the action or basically looking busy while waiting their turn to get hit "noodle time" because they could just sit and eat a bowl of noodles while it's not their turn. There was lots and lots of it in this one, and I don't even mean the guys with flattened nuts rolling around waiting to get shot in the head, the actual fights looked really sloppy compared to the other films.

Yeah, first film is amazing. The second one upped the action a bit at the expense of some weird plot convolutions. Three got really stupid, and four is freshman spring break stupid on a eightball of blow and sixteen hours of Jagerbombs. If you liked it, I get why, and I'm not saying you're stupid, but I'm just not there with you on it. They took a film franchise where you had to suspend your disbelief to enjoy it, and then made it completely farcical, a parody of itself before they were done with it. At least Clancy Brown's character wasn't a total clown. Gonna have to re-watch the first one to rinse the taste of this one out of my mouth. Thankfully, it was only $5.

I didn't stick around for the credits, what did I miss?

quote:

Originally posted by Lord Vaalic:

quote:

Originally posted by LastCubScout:
Give me The Raid or Dredd or the end to Rambo 4. I like my violence a little meaner and more visceral.

Dredd was excellent. Went under the radar, never got the attention it deserved. Should have been a sequel. Maw-Maw Clan

Dredd is excellent and should have had a sequel. Wouldn't have needed anything more of a plot than "oh, they got locked in a different city block this time with different shitbags to kill" and it still would've worked.

Well said Smudge.

Also, to add. There's an end credit scene. And it's not worth the credit wait to see it. Not even close to worth it.

This could have been the same film at 2 hrs by simply tightening up the fight scenes.

Re Post Credits Cut Scene:

It essentially sets up a potential spin-off that would not feature the John Wick character.

Judging from the number of professional assassins that are in Wick's world, 3 out of 5 deaths are probably due to an assassination of some kind.

quote:

Originally posted by Ronin1069:
It essentially sets up a potential spin-off that would not feature the John Wick character.

I just watched someone's bootleg clip of it on Youtube. Uh. No thanks.

quote:

Originally posted by sigspecops:
Judging from the number of professional assassins that are in Wick's world, 3 out of 5 deaths are probably due to an assassination of some kind.

Four out of every five people you meet are assassins. All hobos are assassins. Bedouins are all assassins. Every major city is populated only with assassins. In the spinoff, they need to go to space and have everyone on the crew be an assassin except for one guy. He would have no lines and would just kind of be there. They all have a massive gun/sword/grappling/fistfight and only one assassin makes it back to Earth, bleeding out and piloting the ship home by herself, crashing through fifty assassins on the ground. Inexplicably, there's not one or two, but five Belgian Malinois the hero assassin commands, and one got hit by a meteor and gets up like nothing happened. Another one catches the rebounding meteor in it's mouth, crushes it and and flings the still-molten slag at an assassin, hitting him in the nuts. He catches fire and burns up, screaming. Then the dog takes a shit on his ashes. Guy in the theater yells "GOOD DOG!" Would be fricking awesome.

quote:

Would be fricking awesome.

LOL
Love it

quote:

Four out of every five people you meet are assassins. All hobos are assassins. Bedouins are all assassins. Every major city is populated only with assassins. In the spinoff, they need to go to space and have everyone on the crew be an assassin except for one guy. He would have no lines and would just kind of be there. They all have a massive gun/sword/grappling/fistfight and only one assassin makes it back to Earth, bleeding out and piloting the ship home by herself, crashing through fifty assassins on the ground. Inexplicably, there's not one or two, but five Belgian Malinois the hero assassin commands, and one got hit by a meteor and gets up like nothing happened. Another one catches the rebounding meteor in it's mouth, crushes it and and flings the still-molten slag at an assassin, hitting him in the nuts. He catches fire and burns up, screaming. Then the dog takes a shit on his ashes. Guy in the theater yells "GOOD DOG!" Would be fricking awesome.

Youre not wrong and that's where the second one strayed for me. I watched it with a buddy and we argued at the end that I was pissed that everyone's an assassin now and he was like no dude its his paranoia. Turns out I was right though I'd have preferred that interpretation had it been true.

I actually really liked this one. I'd put one first, then either this or the beginning of 2 next then the rest. Didnt like three but also haven't revisited it yet. Its a common movie issue where they cant keep their hidden world hidden and it blows up to insane stakes. I thought this one was good though I went in with low expectations. I had some watch checking in the first bit and it lulled somewhere but the payoff was there and I enjoyed it.

I went to see “The Journey” yesterday and must say I enjoyed it more than Wick 4.

Wait...are you talking about the 2017 movie or the Andrea Bocelli one out now??

There may be a side of you we didn't know about.

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
Wait...are you talking about the 2017 movie or the Andrea Bocelli one out now??

There may be a side of you we didn't know about.

Bocelli. Actually saw him in concert in Nashville early this year.

I saw it last night and enjoyed it. It’s mindless violence for mindless violences sake. Anyone who saw 2 or 3 and expects this to be any different than it is shouldn’t go see it.

*spoiler*

I particularly liked the view from overhead during the dragons breath shotgun fighting. And the fight in the traffic circle was cool too.

Saw this last night in the theater. I would estimate it was 90%+ full which was surprising considering when I went to get tickets 4 hours before the show only 2 seats were reserved.


The JW sequels got worse and worse as they were released and this is coming from a Keanu/JW fan. The first movie arguably had enough "belief suspension." The 2nd JW movie with the introduction of "bullet proof suits" toed the line of all things believable and the 3rd JW cleared that line by a mile. The 4th and latest is now beyond ridiculous and is actually annoying/insulting to the viewer. I don't need to see the same flying armbar/takedown 50 different ways. I don't need action sequences that last 10+ minutes, showing variations of the same thing over and over again. I don't need JW to be a superhero, taking bullets, stab wounds, car collisions and falling from heights while bouncing off everything on the way down just so he can brush it off and go back to killing like nothing happened. I wanted to enjoy this movie, I really did, but the prolonged, senseless, repetitive violence and not a single shred of believably by the end was enough to wish I waited to watch this at home. Watching this reminded me of the "Fast and the Furious" franchise where a bunch of mechanics who did oil changes to pay their bills and raced modified cars transformed into superheros over 9 or 10 films. Anyone who has seen that series knows how ridiculous and a joke it's become. John Wick has entered that territory with the last 2/2.5 movies.


There are bright spots. As others have mentioned the dragonbreath scene was spectacular. I enjoyed the nunchaku portrayal and the addition of Donnie Yen and Hiroyuki Sanada was very welcome. I'm also a fan of the usage of shotguns as many movies don't showcase their versatility and technique the way the JW movies have.


In closing, I treat JW4 like 2 and 3. It's worth rewatching for a few select scenes but to rewatch any of them from beginning to end... that's reserved only for the 1st movie. YMMV

quote:

The only one in the first film besides the bartender and the deceased wife was Perkins, and she had kind of a snotty pain-in-the-ass vibe more than anything else.

You forgot the Red Circle blonde in the black bikini.

I enjoyed the movie but i can’t say i liked it. Too many things bugged me since early in the first scenes.

My list of griefs is quite significant for this kind of pure fun movies.

When it ended, my knees had forgotten how to work. My wife noticed a couple of other viewers that stoog up and tried to leave the theater only to fail miserably. They fell down the stairs clumsily wondering WTF was wrong with their bodies. She grabbed one from the back trying to help but yhe. noticed a second one in the same situation and decided it was safer to stay out of their way.

Me, i was learning to walk all over again. Missed it all.

0-0

I'm into the mindless violence and carnage movies, but even for me some of this was a bit over the top, jumped the shark, whatever the movie term is..

Watched it last night, of the 4, it was probably the least favorite, agree the arm bar fight scenes were way too long, I actually turned it off during the 4 hour fight scene in HK saying, this is shit, then, after a half hour, "ok got to get it done and out of my system"

Shotgun scene from above was interesting, the stair scene at the end, predictable and again, drawn out, the dual with a blind man who hits 3 of 3, come-on....

Interesting that Ian McShanes height was really revealed either that or everyone else is 7 foot tall, normally he's not shown in that manner.

And wtf was it with the Marquis, that was just, stupid and all the French aristocrat locations, it was like watching some of A View to A Kill, was expecting Christopher Walken to show on the set....

Hear that Statham and the Rock will be in the sequel as compatriots of Wick see, he really isn't dead, they are just trying to hid him as he'll be coming back for all the members of the High Table in JW5..... They will be driving cool 70's muscle cars and one big ass Full on military tank Humvee...

I'll have to watch it again and reassess.

***more spoilers***

The stairs scene was ludicrous. I’ll agree that the fight in HK was unnecessarily long, though the scene with the girl climbing up the back of that dude with her knives was cool.

I just watched this yesterday and I was disappointed in the reliance on the tailored suit armor for every engagement. I also found it ironic that nobody had any issues with getting shot but when Wick hit someone in the leg with nunchucks, they actually grunted in pain and doubled over.

Also, as has been mentioned, it's very difficult to believe everyone would continue doing what they were doing as if there weren't people fighting with guns, swords, etc. The Arc de Triomphe traffic circle and the dancers at the rave. People were literally bouncing off of hoods and the drivers would continue on their merry way. And it was only at the end of the fight scene in the rave that people started reacting--but only to stand there gaping.

Except for those issues, though, the movie was enjoyable.

Well I saw it this evening. Can I say it? It was boring...same shooting and martial arts crap over and over and over. Underwhelming to say the least. Definitely the worse in the franchise series.