John Wick: Chapter 4  ★★★★½

WITH the release of its latest instalment, John Wick now rivals Mission Impossible and James Bond as the best action film franchise ever.

And it’s achieved that status after only four films, with just one more to hopefully go.

John Wick: Chapter 4 also rivals the Bond adventure Skyfall as the most beautifully shot action film.

Danish cinematographer Dan Lautsen has played a pivotal role in the expansion of the franchise from a basic, largely-stripped back actioner to a world-creating and traversing adventure story.

Between shooting chapters 2, 3 and 4, Lautsen also worked with master director Guillermo del Toro on two other fascinating, world-creating thrillers The Shape of Water and Nightmare Alley.

For Chapter 4, Lautsen has helped create the stunning depictions of beautiful locations within which director Chad Stahelski stages not just phenomenal action sequences but also some charged character confrontations.

In fact the action is almost matched by several dramatic lead-in sequences and the finale is staged simply with two men firing muskets at each other.

As with the previous films, Chapter 4 picks up immediately after the events of the previous instalment with John Wick hiding underground with the Bowery King in New York after being marked for death by the High Table, the powerful, shadowy group that seems to be at the organisational centre of all international assassination activities.

Wick travels to Morocco and kills the Elder, who sits above the Table, in an effort to send them a message. But this only results in a new character, High Table member the Marquis Vincent de Gramont, being assigned to kill him.

Gramont firstly takes revenge on Wick’s friend Winston, manager of the New York Continental hotel, and then enlists blind assassin Caine to join an assault on the Osaka Continental hotel where Wick is now being given refuge.

The plot continues from there with Wick carrying out another assassination in order to earn the right to challenge the Marquis in single combat and the Marquis throwing hundreds of men in Wick’s path.

Apart from Caine, new characters include Shimazu Koji and his daughter Alira, who run the Osaka Continental, a lone wolf bounty hunter named Mr Nobody and the massive Killa Harkan, Head of the German Table.

If all this sounds like gobbledegook to you it’s because you much prefer the basic approach of the original film or you haven’t seen any of the following chapters

Regardless, you should be impressed by the incredible, extended action sequences in Chapter 4, including brawls using fists, feet, knives, swords and all manner of guns at a hotel, in a packed nightclub, amidst oncoming traffic at a Paris landmark and on a public staircase. There is also one sequence filmed largely from overhead that is one of the most spectacularly staged in many years

Joining Reeves and franchise regulars Ian McShane, Laurence Fishburne and the late Lance Reddick, are a range of great additions including Donnie Yen as Caine, Bill Skarsgard as de Gramond and Rina Sawayama as Akira.

At nearly three hours long, some may feel Chapter 4 wears out its welcome. I disagree and feel the time flew by.

If you only watch one action film this year, you have to make it this one.