Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: "Ian J. Ball" <ijball@mac.invalid>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-05-28 (Wednesday)
Date: Fri, 30 May 2025 12:15:04 -0700
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On 5/29/25 3:05 PM, shawn wrote:

> On Thu, 29 May 2025 13:50:35 -0700, "Ian J. Ball" <ijball@mac.invalid>
> wrote:
>> On 5/29/25 7:52 AM, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
>>
>>> What Did You Watch?
>>
>> After an unexpectedly long workday, I finally got to "John Wick 4":
>>
>> John Wick 4 (Peacock) - The most ridiculous "John Wick" yet!! I don't
>> know if that's a good thing or a bad thing!!
> 
> It's a great thing.
> 
>>     I don't think this was in glorious 4k on Peacock (I'll have to
>> double-check when I get home).

Correcting myself - apparently, it was 4k, on the 4k TV. It doesn't show 
up as 4k on Peacock on the iPad or the iPhone, but it does on the TV.

>>     Sidenote: The same visual artifacts I was occasionally seeing with
>> "Andor" were also popping up during this movie, especially during the
>> desert scene early in the movie. As "Andor" is Disney+ app, and this was
>> Peacock, it had to mean that the issue was the 4k TV. Sure enough, the
>> problem went away when I switched from "Cinema Home" visual mode (and I
>> was seeing the same artifacts in "Standard" mode as well) to "Filmmaker"
>> visual mode. I have no idea how they've screwed up "Cinema Home" visual
>> mode so badly - I've got to think that this problem has been introduced
>> with a recent update from LG, as the 4k TV was definitely not doing this
>> before.
>>     Anyway, this was a fun, but ridiculous! ride.
>>     SPOILERS
>>     Will
>>     Surely
>>     Follow
>>     I was disappointed that some previous characters, like the
>> "Adjudicator" from the previous film, didn't show up in this one.
> 
> I'm not sure what purpose she would have served in this movie.

She was just a good villain - I would have liked to have seen her again.

>>     I also was annoyed that so many hatchets were buried from "John Wick
>> 3" - both Wick and the Bowery King should have wanted Winston dead, but
>> it's almost like the events of "3" didn't even happen on this front. (I
>> guess they felt like they couldn't throw Ian McShane overboard!)
>>     And, on this same front - Did they just get insanely lucky in
>> killing off Charon in this flick, just before Lance Reddick died IRL? Or
>> did they change the film somehow after Reddick died?!
>>     I was quite surprised when Shamier Anderson (of "Wynonna Earp", and
>> before that season #1 of "The Next Step"!!) popped up in this in a
>> pretty darn prominent role.
>>     Meanwhile, they have Donnie Yen playing the Asian Daredevil (how do
>> they get away with this!?!) as John Wick's main "rival" (though, unlike
>> in "3", this time the rival is actually an old buddy, and not a deranged
>> fanboy!!). Also popping up in this one was Hiroyuki Sanada (he's
>> everywhere these days), Japanese(?) pop star Rina Sawayama, and Clancy
>> Brown! (as "The Harbinger"!).
>>     Whatever else you want to say, the "John Wick" films *look* great on
>> screen, esp. "2" thru "4". This one has lots of great shots of backlit
>> thugs standing around palaces and opera houses and churches and the
>> like, for your visual eye candy!
> 
> They know how to deliver on the eye candy. Something you would think
> more movies could do.
> 
>>     Hey - are those napalm(?) shotgun shots(?) a real thing, or not?!
> 
> Yes, they are a very real thing. Dragon's Breath shotgun shells.
> 
> real life
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNx1GgzYlSI
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rd_V3dsNyA0
> 
> Wick verse
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkxVhFg81fs
> 
> Some amazing plotting for the movement and shots in that sequence.

OK, if they're magnesium, then they wouldn't work as portrayed in the 
movie (IMO). In the movie, they really seemed more like "napalm shotgun 
shells".

>> That was another killer filmed sequence in this film - looking down on
>> John Wick as he wields the napalm(?) shotgun(?!) and exterminates loads
>> of thugs!
>>     In the ridiculous department, apparently John Wick (& co.!) have
>> "inter-dimensional travel" among their various superpowers, what with
>> the way John Wick (& co.!) hopped all around the globe in mere
>> miliseconds in this flick!
>>     I also am having a harder and harder time buying the "criminal
>> underworld world-building" they're doing in these films - this High
>> Table stuff and all it's accompanying pomp and circumstance is insane!!
>> The last several films (I think all the way back to "2") have definitely
>> suffered from the lack of an appearance of even a single cop or Fed in
>> the proceedings.
> 
> Cops are smart enough to not get involved in anything that appears to
> involve the High Table.

It just blows any remaining believability out of the water with these films!

>>     I also didn't care for the obvious use of CGI (and/or greenscreen?)
>> in this film - especially the sequence in Paris with all of the cars was
>> most obviously CGI in large part.
>>     I guess this film wraps up the "High Table" storyarc. (Indeed, the
>> end of this one implies John Wick is dead!) But apparently a "John Wick
>> 5" is in the works - but it sounds like this film is going to be more
>> like a "Fugitive"/"Equalizer" type thing, without all the insane High
>> Table malarkey.
> 
> Don't forget the other movie that is forthcoming in the Wick verse.

Yeah - but when will "Ballerina" get past Starz?! Probably 2 years after 
its release!