Blood-soaked, bullet-riddled barrages of murder and mayhem have rarely been this exciting or looked this gorgeous. What started as a simple tale of a grieving ex-hitmen widower avenging his slain puppy has achieved a gargantuan, globe-trotting climax here in ‘John Wick: Chapter 4’.

The John Wick franchise has rich and detailed lore, comprising improbably skilled and honourable assassins adhering to a complex network of allegiances and iron-clad rules, which threatened to become a convoluted mess in ‘Chapter 3’. Thankfully, the story has been streamlined this time around. It’s easier to follow the threads, while still maintaining the tone of a self-serious shonen anime.

But for as complex as this beautifully rendered fantasy world can get, John Wick himself, and by extension, Keanu Reeves, is simple: trim and crisp in a 42-long tailored dark suit regardless of the punishment he’s receiving or dishing out, Wick is fighting to get a multi-million dollar bounty off his head. Despite John Wick’s jaw-dropping durability and skill with a gun, his life is but a plaything to authoritarian forces, here in the form of a cabal known as the High Table. Wick doesn’t have a hope of defeating them or bending them to his will. He’s a gunslinger and doomed noir protagonist, archetypical and familiar, yes, but a guy we can understand and root for too. Reeves’ mysterious line delivery, speaking each word as if he’s discovering them in real-time, only adds to the character’s charm. Who else can stretch ‘Yeah’ to a three-syllable word?

All you need to know, is that if you’re a fan of this series, ‘Chapter 4’ ends things on the highest note possible. The four or so major action set-pieces are inventive and varied, blending gothic and futuristic production design to mesmerising effect, a loud-and-clear rebuke to modern Hollywood action films too often committed to treading the middle of the road. The sequences of violence are painstakingly choreographed and precisely filmed, and are often exhilarating in their balletic displays of death and destruction.

As per the previous sequels, colourful new characters keep things from getting stale. Donnie Yen as Caine, a blind assassin, is as magnetic as he is quick with a blade. And The Marquis (Bill Skarsgard), the face of The High Table, is appropriately weaselly and greasy. If there’s anything to complain about, it’s that it could’ve used more of Shimazu (Hiroyuki Sanada) and his daughter Akira (Rina Sawayama), whose early appearances kicked the film into high gear.

Whatever becomes of the future of the series – spinoffs, prequels, whatever – this tetralogy stands by itself as a hugely impressive monument to thrilling professionalism and passion.    

4.5 Stars out of 5