I haven't written a review on IMDB in a while, but after watching JW4 last night I wanted to get my thoughts out there, although they are seemingly against the majority of fans and reviewers out there.

My thoughts on the series as a whole are that #1 was something special. It made me and many of its fans feel something when we watched it. It had emotional impact and weight, that really was the core of the movie. Sure the action was innovative and fantastic, and Keanu was awesome, but it was all meaningful and heavy.

Number #2 did a lot of things wrong that started the downfall of the series. The lore of the continental assassins universe was just botched plain and simple, and it lead to horrible writing decisions. Instead of John taking on a mission of his own will like the first, a new rule is invented as a plot devise to "make" him do something, which was pointless anyway because he then tries to kill the guy who is making him do all this anyway. Then instead of being an amazing assassin and figuring out how to kill the guy, he just breaks the main rule and gets everyone rightfully against him because he broke the one rule. It also introduced the stupid invincible suits that was the first step into fantasy and superpowers.

#3 was a huge downgrade further, with far more ridiculous continental lore, terrible writing like having John do one thing, only to undo that by doing the opposite which he could have done in the first place, even more fantasy magic suit nonsense, and multiple massive injuries that should have killed him, like cars hitting him and falling off a building onto metal railing.

After hearing great things about it from personalities I listened to, I had high hopes that the silliness of #3 would be left behind with #4, but those were lies. #4 doubles, triples, quintuples down on all the worst parts of #3. More stupid suit nonsense. A dog mauling people throughout the movie. Cars hitting John multiple times, and at least deadly falls off buildings that doesn't slow him down. It's as bad as fast and the furious now, maybe even worse.

I was thinking about why it was so bad, and it occurred to me that you really couldn't parody this movie. Think about typical John Wick clichés that you could parody. Maybe having a joke of him shooting someone in the head way too many times when its not necessary, oh wait this has that already. Having him fall from obviously deadly height, only to brush it off and get up, oh it has that. Have him get hit by 5 cars in a row, that would be funny, oh wait they had that too.

Perhaps the worst for me is the ending, and the writing is so bad, I'm not even sure its worth breaking down. None of the writing or decisions make sense, and it seems the writers thought they were being deep, and it seems people are falling for it at the moment. I can only hope that once the hype wears off people can think clearly and realize how awful the story is and

To sum it up, even after #3 I still felt I saw a John Wick movie and hoped they could at least do more of that, but even those low expectations were dashed. From a technical standpoint this movie could be a 6, but making this franchise into a parody of itself is not something I can overlook, and I think it needs to be called out. I was more unhappy than I was happy while watching this, which puts it under 5, and the more I thought about it, the more appalled I became, so in all honesty this is a 2 for me.