My issues with guns are not simply limited to the carnage they cause in the real world. Cinematically, guns are often inert and, frankly, boring. When I like an action film, rarely do they prominently feature firearms. Take what I believe to be the three high watermarks of action cinema of the last 10 years: “Mission: Impossible — Fallout,” “Mad Max: Fury Road,” and “The Raid 2.” These are films that thrive on their kineticism that let us marvel at the choreography. Car chases, hand-to-hand fights, jumping out of airplanes. These are the thrills best suited to action cinema. Always moving, always changing, and always carefully choreographed.
The first two “John Wick” films occasionally implement these sequences, but they are extremely gun-focused. Yes, these sequences are precisely put together, but there is a limit to my enjoyment when ultimately it is a guy standing and shooting at another guy who is standing and shooting. Making it even more distancing is that John Wick is in a completely bulletproof suit, thus minimizing any chance of him sustaining severe gunshot wounds. Combine these kinds of action set pieces with an overall adoration of guns, and I just found myself lost amongst the praise and adulation.
A regular person who hasn’t particularly enjoyed the first two entries of a film series would probably just stop seeing them. Well, I am no ordinary person, and out of a sense of obligation to the cinematic medium, I went back to the theater to see “John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum.” And it was watching that movie that my entire perspective on the series flipped.
But I can also see all the imagination around it. This neon-tinged underground continues to reveal itself with new subgroups, new rules, new allegiances, and new histories, and I am eager to learn all about them. For some people, this world expansion has pulled the films away from the original film’s emotional core that hooked them at the beginning. From my perspective, the less real the “John Wick” series becomes the more successful it is. And the less real these movies are, the less its use of guns feels like a celebration of an instrument of destruction. “John Wick: Chapter 4” sports a nearly three-hour running time, and if you would have told me a few years ago that I would be beaming with excitement to see it just a few hours after this piece gets published, I wouldn’t have believed you in the slightest. Yet here we are, and the “John Wick” series is now one of my favorite franchises. This is a good reminder to always be open to changing your mind, especially about movies.