Just have fun out there.

John Wick 4 – 3/5

Trim out an hour and a half of excess plot and unnecessary side characters, and you've got the core of John Wick 1 – plotless and purposeful. Arc de Triomphe, Top-Down View, and the Stairway is one long "survive the night" in order to get to the final boss (and somehow try to retrofit the Killa sequence in there because it's so much fun). That's all we need. Every new sequel wants to add something, new layers of mythology. We don't want more gods and demons, we want to see people get shot in the face from new angles. The John Wick series has been an exercise in execution. How best to give us what we want in increasingly new ways? The problem is that it fell in love with its world, with its characters. It wants to build skyward, when I prefer it to hint at a larger world to the left and right while John Wick barrels his way through the middle.