10 Years Later, First John Wick Movie Doesn’t Seem to Be Worth the Hype

Summary:

• The 2014 action movie, following the violent crimes and revenge of John Wick, played by Keanu Reeves, gave birth to one of the most hyped movie franchises.
• Nowadays it’s receiving criticism concerning the simplicity of its narration and controversial casting choices, but it doesn’t outweigh the movie’s support.
• Keanu Reeves has gained the status of an action hero long ago, with the glowing success of the Matrix franchise 25 years ago, however, he might have lost it in a chain of starring in a sequence of mid movies in the 2000s.

Luckily, he was found and returned back to action films by Chad Stahelski, his Matrix’s stunt double, with whom they established the new successful franchise, the one of John Wick, following a retired hitman in anger.

Back in 2014, the first Wick movie became a sensation, bringing back the traditions of so-called gun fu, a movie style of gunfight resembling martial arts, and rekindling people’s interest in the genre of straight-forward crime actions.

Despite the fact that it came as a huge public success, allowing its creators to expand the movie universe by sequels and spin-offs, John Wick now faces controversial critical claims.

There is a claim that the first franchise’s film was not as good as it can be recalled because the image of it is distorted by three massively popular sequels. Despite the widespread recognition of the movie’s fight choreography and the operator’s vision of it, supported by Stahelski’s understanding of stunts, the haters call out its weak aspects.

Being the first movie depicting John Wick’s criminal underworld, it is claimed not to polish its narration and the directing of fighting sequences. The fact that it takes much longer for the action to start, which makes the story duller, is also mentioned here.

Besides, there are some serious claims towards the casting decisions made by the creators for the first Wick movie.

“We all like Keanu but the casting wasn’t great, as I didn’t care about the villain enough to have any emotional response when he got his comeuppance,” Redditor @sebastiancalhoun expresses their impression of the antagonist, Russian crime lord Viggo Tarasov, and it’s hard to disagree with this statement.

Nevertheless, given a significant number of people trying to blame John Wick for poor quality, it’s still outnumbered by the movie’s admirers, who are sure that the first movie deserves as much attention as its more commercially successful continuations.

“Now every movie is trying to match that filmmaking and it's making American Action great again,” concludes user @thebeautifullynormal regarding the movie’s hype.

You can decide what army you belong to and revise the memories of the first John Wick, which is now available on Netflix and Prime.