Review: 'John Wick: Chapter 4' shoots and scores

The "John Wick" franchise — it all started back in 2014 when bad guys killed his dog, remember? — hits an absurd high with "John Wick: Chapter 4," an immersive, explosive, gloriously decadent action extravaganza which elevates the shoot-'em-up series to the level of high art.

The "Wick" movies have always been ultra-stylized, balletic presentations; not since John Woo's late '80s/ early '90s peak has the guys-with-guns genre been rendered quite as richly or poetically. "John Wick: Chapter 4" shatters the series' own ornate ceiling, bringing not only a museum-like quality to its grand set pieces and design but a satisfying emotional payoff to those scenes and its characters. It's difficult to imagine a "John Wick" movie or any other R-rated action spectacles, for that matter, climbing much higher.

The fact that it weighs in at nearly three hours in length is not the crazy part; the crazy part is that it justifies its length and uses its time to invest in its storyline, its characters and its over-the-top thrills. It all started with bad guys killing his dog and now it has come to this, and this certainly feels like something major, something special.

The immortal Keanu Reeves plays John Wick, retired hitman brought back into the field after the cruel murder of his pup, with a stoicism that borders on the mythical; he probably says 100 words or less in "Wick: Chapter 4," and he only speaks when he needs to. Reeves has fashioned Wick into a riff on his own legend, and the quiet spirituality and exactitude of Reeves has bled into Wick and vice versa. Aside from all the gunplay, it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

As "Chapter 4" opens, Wick is ready for revenge against the High Table, the association of top tier crime bosses who have a price on his head. And the High Table — represented by Marquis Vincent de Gramont (a hilariously posh and wickedly evil Bill Skarsgård, employing an untraceable European accent) — is ready to go to war with Wick, even going so far as to have the Continental, the New York hotel where Wick does his business, demolished. (The late Lance Reddick, who has appeared in each of the "John Wick" films, returns briefly as Charon, the hotel's concierge.)

Gramont hires Caine (the great Donnie Yen), an expert assassin who just happens to be blind, to go after Wick. He's not the only one after him: there's also Mr. Nobody (Shamier Anderson), who tracks Wick with the help of his trusty German shepherd, but will only pull the trigger on him if the price is right. Wick's pal Winston Scott (Ian McShane) is around to dole out the occasional nugget of fatherly advice, and the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) is there to occasionally ham it up and gnaw on scenery, and lend the production some bawdy, Shakespearean-level gravitas.

Wick is hiding out at the Osaka Continental Hotel, under the protective watch of Shimazu Koji (Hiroyuki Sanada), but it's not long before word gets out of his location. Cue one of many elaborate, opulent, highly choreographed action sequences, where various foes try (and fail) to conquer Wick.

Here's the place where we need kudos all around, first to director Chad Stahelski, who has helmed all the "Wick" films, and has a blast topping himself here. Then there's cinematographer Dan Laustsen (a double Oscar nominee for his work on Guillermo del Toro's "The Shape of Water" and "Nightmare Alley," deserving of a third for his work here, for his late-in-the-film, De Palma-esque overhead tracking shot alone); production designer Kevin Kavanaugh; editor Nathan Orloff; fight coordinators Laurent Demianoff and Jeremy Marinas, and more: "John Wick: Chapter 4" is gorgeous to look at and a triumph on many levels, and its team truly came together to create an entire world. There are many film adaptations of comic books, but the "John Wick" movies — especially this entry — feel like a film series that should be adapted into a comic book.

One interaction between Gramont and Scott unfolds in front of Eugène Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People, just one example of the movie's approach to fine art and high level aesthetics. Another sequence takes place at a nightclub with an active waterfall and a crowd of people who don't let the gunfight happening around them stop them from dancing: look, it would probably be in these people's best interest to move out of harm's way, but it looks a lot cooler to have them dancing, so they dance, and it's tough to argue with the end results. (Chapter 4 of the John Wickipedia clearly states that whatever looks the coolest is what shall be done and questions should not be asked.)

Garmont, Caine, Nobody and, yes, Wick all get their moments, so by the movie's climax, the audience is fully invested in them. For all the tricks on display, for all the colorful garnish that's placed on top of the meal, the script by Shay Hatten and Michael Finch does its job by setting the table and establishing the stakes and the players. That makes it so all the other stuff services the story and the characters and in the end, everything matters.

It's wild to be saying that everything matters in the fourth movie in a series about a guy whose dog was killed by bad guys, but here we are. It's popcorn entertainment, obviously, but it's popcorn entertainment done just right. "John Wick: Chapter 4" knows a fourth "John Wick" isn't worth doing unless it goes all the way. And this "John Wick" goes all the way, guns absolutely blazing.

agraham@detroitnews.com

@grahamorama

John Wick: Chapter 4

GRADE: A

Rated R: for pervasive strong violence and some language

Running time: 169 minutes

In theaters