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John Wick Chapter 4 (Full Reaction)

🕑 Added 2024-02-14 01:03:49 +0000 UTC

Comments

William

Great reaction, as always. As I was watching, I found myself responding and talking to you as if you were sitting right next to me. This is definitely one of my very favorite movies ever. And I’m so excited they’re making a 5th movie. John Wick is not dead!! In the words of Arnold, “He’ll be back.”

Jacqueline

I love the Marvel crossover in this film! Also, Donnie Yen was fantastic in this. I've heard Ip Man is a great film. I'm looking forward to checking it out, especially now that I know some of these actors are in it!

Jacqueline

Oh, that's who he was! He looked so familiar.

Lamar Smith

Isn’t there some spinoff or maybe it’s a video game called ‘The Continental,’ or some such? The fact that in #1, John comes out of retirement and EVERYONE knows him, knows what he’s capable of would seem to scream for an origin story, no? Not sure if they could get it done in one film but take the character through and out of the Ruska Roma, out in to the world of contract killing and earning his first coins and such. Then meeting/falling for Helen, possibly even finding out she’s sick. I know movie magic can de-age actors but I’d almost think they’d go with a young relatively unknown, rather than shelling out the Keanu-level salary.

Ed Scoglio

Your looks of hatred for the Marquis any time he came on screen were just so adorable! Jax, would you say this is one of the villains you've hated most? Maybe not as much as Darren from Ant Man, but Marquis seems to be up there so far! I loved this movie so much. I think the additional characters added really elevated this movie. I'd honestly watch other movies starring just them. I'd love to watch a movie about Caine, I'd watch one about Koji and his daughter, I'd love a Mr. Nobody movie. They've built such a deep world that I'd love to see more and more of!

Doug Watson

I have really enjoyed your journey through the John Wick films. I think you liked Donnie Yen who played Caine. If you did I'd recommend Ip Man. I think it's Donnie Yen at his best. Scott Adkins, who plays Killa, the fat German dude, is in Ip Man 4, and you also saw him in Doctor Strange as the guy getting beat up by Strange's cloak, except he wasn't wearing a fat suit .

Lamar Smith

See if you think it’s the same place: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadi_Rum. If you film in Jordan then you’ll end up at either Wadi Rum or Petra. No reason to film in Jordan and NOT shoot there.

Lamar Smith

I’m not 100% sure of this but pretty sure. You’ll recall in the very beginning when John is in the Middle East chasing a group of horsemen down this desert valley with cliffs on both sides. I’m pretty sure it’s the very famous and important UNESCO site in Jordan, Wadi Rum. If you get to some of the Classics by David Lean, you’ll see it again in ‘Lawrence of Arabia.’ Also exceptional by Lean is the Russian classic ‘Doctor Zhivago.’

Lamar Smith

Oh and I only just noticed it, the ‘Marquis’ was played by Bill Skarsgård. I didn’t look but I’d assume he’s kin to the other acting Skarsgards. ‘Dr. Selvig’ of Marvel is the Dad, Alexander Skarsgard played in ‘Generation Kill’ an HBO miniseries that’s quite good and there’s another Skarsgard in the History Channel ‘Vikings.’

Jacqueline

I love that the inhaler was something they added on set!

Jacqueline

Thank you so much!!

Lamar Smith

The notion of dueling is pretty silly, really. So, what is the best possible outcome for a duelist? You take your spot, you each shoot once, shake hands and go your merry way. So, long as you and your opponent were just putting on a show, it was relatively safe. Get a pair like Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, where Burr positively despised Hamilton, then it gets dangerous. A strategy in dueling that, if it came off, made you appear very poised and deliberate is NOT to fire on “Fire!” but allow your, hopefully, very nervous opponent to shoot first, again hopefully missing. Then you, with your loaded pistol, could decide where, exactly, to shoot. Of course, even a nervous opponent shooting an inaccurate gun can hit something vital.

Lamar Smith

So, dueling, in History, was a real thing. Probably the most famous was the Hamilton-Burr duel. The scene with the turning over of the metal cards to decide terms is a bit much but the two basic methods were swords and pistols, later almost exclusively pistols. So, you’re a young gentleman making your way in the world and you come across someone who you feel has impugned your honor, somehow. Your name/honor, for a gentleman, was far more important than wealth. If you were witnessed to be insulted and you didn’t respond, your honor suffered irreparable harm, or so the thought went. You might, as you set out, purchase a matched pair of single-shot dueling pistols. Surviving models can be absolutely spectacular in their decoration but were usually designed to be less than accurate than other firearms: you’re not looking to ACTUALLY die, after all. Dueling came to America from Europe and the trend was so popular that ordnances were put in place to outlaw it. The odd thing was that, when challenged, it was ‘ungentlemanly’ to go practice shooting (practicing meant you actually wanted to kill the guy, not just protect your own honor) but historical records seem to indicate that Aaron Burr spent the afternoon of his duel with Hamilton doing exactly that. On the, I want to say, evening of their duel, there seems to be an indication that Hamilton fired his pistol harmlessly up, hitting a limb of a tree, an act that satisfied honor but was quietly applauded as decidedly non-lethal. Apparently, Hamilton saw Burr actually aiming his pistol at him and screamed “No!” as Burr fired, killing him, seeming to say, “Hey, what’re you doing??!!?? I’m NOT aiming at you!” Insofar as the State was concerned, the problem with dueling was that it was almost exclusively the province of the well-to-do. Nations where dueling was heavily in vogue soon found that an endless stream of the wealthiest, best educated, most able to take the reins of government were, instead, corpses. Dueling pistols were smooth on the inside of the barrel, so as not to be tremendously accurate. Dueling was already on the way out by the time barrels had grooves to spin the bullet making them more accurate.

Lamar Smith

Oh and the asthmatic poker card-cheat assassin ‘Killa Harka’ was played by, apparently, one of the lead stuntmen throughout the entire series in a fat suit. You’ll appreciate how most stuntmen/women do everything they can to hide their identity but, in this case, the stuntman actually got to act. The punching & kicking was pretty easy for him but, apparently, some of the fancy shuffling and dealing took him months of work to make it look good and they still had to bring in a professional dealer for some of the closeups on the hands. If you watch closely later in the fight John and Killa are, sort of, in silhouette, and Killa is doing all these side kicks that take quite a bit of flexibility; that’s where you really get a sense that an actual asthmatic guy that size most probably couldn’t do those moves. I saw an interview with the stuntman and he said the whole inhaler bit was something they came up with to give the audience’s eyes something to do besides spotting the buff actor in a fat suit.

Wreath35

Great reaction.

Jacqueline

That's so cool!

Jacqueline

Thank you! I can see how that may have been inspired by the game Clue!

Lamar Smith

The round and round car chase/serial-killing at the roundabout that circles the Arc de Triomphe is definitely a callout to every, especially foreign, driver that tries that roundabout. That particular traffic circle is like Hotel California: …..can never leave. Parisian drivers there especially do NOT let you change lanes to get out of that thing.

Lamar Smith

Another callback I’m almost positive you’ll not know, Dearest Jax, is the female Parisian DJ who’s tracking John Wick’s movements. There’s a, I want to say ‘78-‘79 cult classic film called ‘The Warriors,’ the same type of DJ, calling her audience ‘boppers’ and leading her listeners to the fleeing Warriors street gang first showed there.

Lamar Smith

I got on this as soon as it dropped. Was it just me or was Jax having a really good hair day? So, a couple of ‘call outs:’ Recall the one-shot from above where the floor in each room was different? I’ve never read that this is true insofar as the production company is concerned but I see a call out to the board game ‘Clue’ in that scene. Thoughts?