The first reviews are in, and John Wick: Chapter 4 has debuted on Rotten Tomatoes with a “fresh” rating, maintaining the consistenly-strong critical response for the fan-favorite action franchise starring Keanu Reeves. The movie, which opens wide on March 24, will follow up on threads from the previous installment, which saw John on the run from the fraternity of assassins of which he used to be a member, getting help from an underground network of wild and violent characters including Laurence Fishburne’s Bowery King. The franchise launched with a single, modestly-budgeted action movie but quickly became a film series, with a television tie-in coming.
With 26 reviews from critics, John Wick: Chapter 4 is at 88%, although that could obviously go up or down a little bit as the rest of the early reviews are published to Rotten Tomatoes. The first John Wick actually has the lowest Rotten Tomatoes rating of the franchise with “only” 86%, while both previous sequels are tied for the highest score with 89%. Chapter 4 debuted at 86% and reached 90% at one point last night before dropping slightly, so it could reasonably land anywhere between the top and bottom of the franchise by the time audiences are allowed to see it.
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“If you took The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, crossed it with Zatoichi, and threw in a Greek myth, you’d probably get something close to this,” director Stahelski said in a 2022 magazine interview. “And who else f—ing says those kinds of sentences? Now you know why I like doing John Wicks.”
“It gets a little scary after the third one,” he continued. “Because now we have a formula that works. But you have to throw caution to the wind and say, ‘F-ck it, we’re not doing that again.’ So now, on number four, we have multiple storylines. The movie feels different. It feels more epic.”
Here’s the story synopsis: “John Wick takes on his most lethal adversaries yet in the upcoming fourth installment of the series. With the price on his head ever increasing, Wick takes his fight against the High Table global as he seeks out the most powerful players in the underworld, from New York to Paris to Osaka to Berlin.”
John Wick: Chapter 4 stars Keanu Reeves, Donnie Yen, Bill Skarsgård, Laurence Fishburne, Hiroyuki Sanada, Shamier Anderson, Lance Reddick, Rina Sawayama, Scott Adkins, and Ian McShane. The film will hit theaters on March 24, and in some markets you can even see it in IMAX.
