Fourth chapter of John Wick saga plays like an exhilarating, endless video game

It’s been a cinematic journey for John Wick, who started out in the 2014 gun-fu flick as a retired hitman taking on his former colleagues after a few of them killed his dog.

Nine years later, we are on the third sequel, with its first image of Keanu Reeves — in the titular role — riding horseback through the Moroccan desert as he chases down well-armed guards. Also on horseback. The scope and the budget have moved brackets exponentially.

Wick is still on the “outs” with his fellow hitman, but now that’s a global network of assassins who report to the dangerous and infinitely-funded cabal known as The Table.

“John Wick: Chapter 4” brings the mythology built around Reeves’ unflappable killer to its excessive conclusion and spreads its video-game aesthetic throughout ritzy locales like New York, Berlin and Paris. No set is too ornate to be spared from buckets of blood and spent rounds of ammo. The viewing experience is an exhilarating showcase for stunt work and cinematography. It can also be exhausting watching Wick dispatch of a cast of thousands while avoiding anything close to a paper cut.

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The plot is beside to the point for many John Wick fans, but demands reporting nonetheless. At the end of “Chapter 3 — Parabellum,” Wick was declared a target for any assassin who could set their sights on him first. This new film picks up from there as The Table — represented by French dandy Marquis Vincent de Gramont (Bill Skarsgård) — seeks to flush out Wick by punishing everyone and anyone who might provide him safe harbor. That includes series regular Ian McShane, who shows up to spout fortune cookie-level witticisms with a weathered expression.

The Table also engages top-shelf gunslingers Caine (Donnie Yen) and Mr. Nobody (Shamier Anderson) to snuff out Wick for good. Yet both hitmen have convoluted motivations to not only keep Wick alive, but dispatch anyone else who might try and kill him first. It doesn’t make any sense.

"John Wick: Chapter 4” is full of convoluted character motivations and unclear story lines. But if the film is shot to look and flow like a video game, the story also contains levels and challenges that become more complicated with as the characters progress.

The only thing that makes sense about this structure is the stakes are clearly higher the more we go along. I don’t find much appreciation for storytelling that resembles game playing when I am not actually playing a game. But if the core audience are “video game guys,” I suspect they will eat this up.

The fans will be lucky because the film is a buffet. “Chapter 4” clocks in at two hours and 45 minutes. There’s lots of talk about the governing structure of this world of hitmen; a lot of world-building for a movie about killers with slick suits and guns that never jam. To its credit, I never checked my watch and never felt restless.

But that’s because I knew every 20 minutes there would be some action sequence that would dance in my eyes and get my heart pumping. Never mind those moments are honestly hilarious. Wick seemingly cannot ever be killed — or even remotely injured — while his opponents have the marksmanship and mortality of the average “Star Wars” stormtrooper.

That’s part of the video game aspect of “John Wick”: he can be shot, stabbed, and thrown off a building but just keeps getting re-set. Game on.

The impervious hero is a cheap device, but it didn’t keep me from laughing at one prolonged moment involving a steep, perilous set of stairs. Or slapping my knee at a fight scene during Parisian night traffic where motorists seem unbothered by fistfights and gunshots. Buster Keaton is looking down from above, knowing his legacy of humor through physical pain is still going strong.

It isn’t just the over-the-top stunts that elicit a reaction. The staging of these fights plays like a parody of 1980s music videos. Consider a segment set in a Berlin discotheque where Wick single-handedly takes on an army of hatchet-wielding henchmen.

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As bones are broken and skulls are crushed with abandon, the music still thumps. The dancers still gyrate. The lights still flash. I couldn’t help but chuckle at the ultimate case of style destroying substance.

“John Wick: Chapter 4,” at its best, is a showcase for daring stunts and slick images. Keanu has his movie star ways about him even if he’s just told to say “Yeah” in a gravely drawn-out way. Yen is a particularly good foil but is given thrice-recycled pulp dialogue to recite. The scenes between the two suggest a better movie that takes advantage of their natural screen abilities.

But I did gasp and I did laugh and I did marvel at the skill of it all. No matter how bloated and bombastic the “John Wick” films get, there’s plenty of exhilaration to enjoy.

James Owen is the Tribune’s film columnist. In real life, he is a lawyer and executive director of energy policy group Renew Missouri. A graduate of Drury University and the University of Kansas, he created Filmsnobs.com, where he co-hosts a podcast. He enjoyed an extended stint as an on-air film critic for KY3, the NBC affiliate in Springfield, and now regularly guests on Columbia radio station KFRU.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: 'John Wick: Chapter 4' plays like exciting, endless video game