Extreme, over-the-top violence in Reeves' action epic.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 17+?
Any Positive Content?
Violence & Scariness
a lot
Extremely graphic, intense action violence. Many, many characters die. Lots of guns and shooting, with bullet wounds, blood sprays, martial arts fighting, punching, kicking, bloody wounds, brutal injuries, etc. Bows and arrows and swords. Neck-slicing. Hand stabbed and pinned to wooden block, character pulls hand loose, tearing own flesh (squishing sounds heard). Multiple stabbings. Pickax to head. Ax-throwing. Characters shot with gun that causes them to burst into flame. Blood spatters. Oozing blood. Multiple car crashes, pedestrians smashing into moving cars. Dog smashed into car windshield (he's OK). A building explodes. Characters thrown through glass windows. Characters falling from great heights, bashing against obstacles on the way down. Character bashed into metal pole. Characters branding flesh. Dog ordered to attack (both "nuts!" and "kill!"). Character hanging by neck from rope, choking. Character falling down multiple stairs.
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Central character John Wick is played by Keanu Reeves, who's of English, Native Hawaiian, Chinese, and Portuguese descent. Wick's friend Winston (Ian McShane) and the villain, the Marquis (Bill Skarsgård), are White men, but most of other characters are women and/or people of color (though, in general, this is a male-dominated story). The Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne), the Tracker (Shamier Anderson), and Charon (Lance Reddick), the concierge of the Continental Hotel, are all Black. Hiroyuki Sanada (who plays Shimazu, the manager of the Osaka Continental) and Rina Sawayama (his daughter Akira) are both from Japan, Donnie Yen (the sighted actor who plays blind swordsman Caine) is from China, and Natalia Tena (Katia, who adopts John Wick into her family) is of Spanish descent.
Even among assassins, a code of honor exists. Rules are rules, and a promise is a promise. There's strong evidence that violence begets violence, and that once the circle has begun, it's nearly impossible to break out of it, no matter how badly you might want to.
Positive Role Models
very little
John Wick is a deadly killer, but he struggles with the line of work he finds himself stuck in and would really like nothing more than some peace. He kills, but "only" those who intend to hurt others. He breaks the rules, but it's in order to protect those he considers friends.
Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that John Wick: Chapter 4 is the fourth film in Keanu Reeves' popular action series. It's also the longest (nearly three hours!), but the filmmakers use the extended running time to create a truly spectacular, dazzlingly visual epic -- though, of course, its themes still revolve mainly around violence and revenge. And it's extremely, outrageously violent. Expect guns and shooting, a high body count, bloody wounds, blood spurts and sprays, fighting, kicking, punching, throat-slitting, stabbing, bows and arrows, swords, falls from high places, car chases and crashes, characters getting hit by cars or slammed into cars (or other hard objects), an attack dog, and much more. Language includes a smattering of words like "f--k," "motherf----r," "s--t," "a--hole," "ass," "bastard," "hell," and "damn" and the French swear word "merde." Adult characters drink in social settings. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails.
This astounding, non-stop action joyride has constant violence
John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023) follows John Wick, an ex mercenary and assassin with the entire world on his back, and a multi-million dollar price tag. With the entire planet and secret underground agency trying to kill him, he tries everything he can to escape. The film has constant strong bloody violence with over-the-top beating, shooting, stabbing, executions, people exploding, bursting on fire and blood splattering and caking the walls left and right. This action violence is ABSOLUTELY to be expected.
VIOLENCE: SEVERE
The violence in this film is constant, and that is even an understatement. Hoards of men are killed in exceedingly brutal manners of shooting, stabbing and viscous beating. There are prolonged sequences lasting sometimes upwards of 20 minutes at a time of men being killed. When men are shot in the head, blood and brain spray out and splatter against walls, after they are often executed by being shot in the head on the floor.
Countless throats are slit with blood detail, and people are slashed, stabbed, impaled and taken out in this manner.
When people are beaten there is unrelenting, vicious punches to the face and body. Bones are snapped, and people shriek in pain.
Multiple men are killed in brutal fashion with hatchets, which fly and smash into heads.
There is an extended sequence where an incendiary shotgun is used to kill countless men, seen from a top-down angle. Fire erupts through their bodies and they blast into flames, rag-dolling on the ground in extreme realistic manners.
An intense sequence shows cars slamming into and killing numerous men. They fly into the air and slam onto the concrete in ultra-realistic manners.
Men are pushed down flights of stairs, slam into light posts and fall onto and are thrown into walls, surroundings and others.
A pencil is used to dispatch a few men in one scene with bloody results.
Blunt objects are used to beat the faces of men.
A dog is shown brutally mauling men countless times, sometimes with bloody results and intense screaming.
A particularly graphic and disturbing scenes shows a man having his hand stabbed and impaled with a knife. He is given the option to rip it out or pull his hand back and slice his hand open by doing so in order to get it out. He chooses to pull his hand back, causing his flesh to tear graphically on camera and blood to go everywhere when he rips his hand out.
Overall, the violence is constant, strong, bloody and sometimes graphic. However, aside from a handful of scenes, the violence never really lingers onscreen and leaves your sight quite quickly. The violence is also shown in an action-related manner and is not disturbing but more entertaining and exhilarating to watch.
LANGUAGE: MILD
7 uses of fuck, some uses of shit and asshole, and uses of ass.
The language is very tame for an R rated film, especially due to the length of the film. Most of the language is missed, forgotten or not noticed due to the constant content and intense plot of the film.
OVERALL: 14+ for pervasive strong violence
Hyper violent entertaining film with lots of action and high body count
This is one of the most violent and with higher body count in the series. There is camaradery and the main character is just grinding through bodies and bodies.
Plot is loose but in great places and backgrounds.
My children 17 and 16 enjoyed it as well as I.
Best in the series
What's the Story?
In JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4, John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is cut off from the Continental, and everyone who ever tried to help him is in trouble with a powerful member of the High Table who's known as the Marquis (Bill Skarsgård). The Marquis starts by shutting down the Continental Hotel in New York. Wick is lying low at a sister hotel in Osaka, Japan, thanks to his friend, hotel manager Shimazu Koji (Hiroyuki Sanada). Unfortunately, the Marquis knows Wick is there and sends an army to dispatch him, including another of Wick's old friends, blind swordsman Caine (Donnie Yen). Wick escapes and vows revenge against the Marquis, but, according to the rules, Wick must challenge him to a duel. Unfortunately, even that much isn't going to be easy.
Clocking in at a hefty 169 minutes, the fourth Wick movie spreads its wings and goes full-blown epic. Every single shot is a dazzler, it has a surefooted pace, and the simple story is elevated to mythical status. The original John Wick was stripped to the bone, clean and classic at just 101 minutes, but by the time John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum came along, the franchise had become flabby -- and exhausting.
But if this franchise as a whole has been inspired by Sergio Leone, then John Wick: Chapter 4 is akin to The Good, the Bad & the Ugly. The cinematography is consistently luxurious, calling to mind the indelible images of movies like Kill Bill, Skyfall, and Blade Runner 2049. And if that wasn't enough, director Chad Stahelski reaches high and pays homage to Lawrence of Arabia, Taxi Driver, and The Warriors, too. His pacing is supremely confident: He knows when to rest, when to pour on the clear, vivid action, and when to ramp it up another impossible notch. Ultimately, John Wick: Chapter 4 still isn't really about much more than violence and revenge, but this time Wick and his various layers of ambiguous friends/enemies (including the amazing Yen and a very good Shamier Anderson as the Tracker) find themselves wriggling between the concept of ending violence and the worrisome notion that this may not be possible.
MPAA explanation:
pervasive strong violence and some language
Last updated:
August 12, 2024
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