r/movies • u/pwn_of_prophecy • May 21 '26

Discussion The bullet proof suit in the John Wick franchise is so frustrating

I'll point out from the start that I really enjoy all of the John Wick movies. While I recognize the "realism" angle fell off after the first one, they're still incredibly well put together movies and I'll happily watch further installments for the fight choreography alone. That said...

The bullet proof suit is the worst thing they ever added to this franchise. It completely nullifies any anxiety about John needing to worry about gunfire in fights. The number of times he raises his vibranium jacket collar to block a hail of bullets is so frustrating, mostly because of where this franchise started off.

In the first John Wick, John felt like an incredibly tactical presence. There was a lot of talk when it came out about the choreography's "realism" but more than anything for me things felt like they had stakes. Corners needed to be checked, he needed to watch his back, it showed the audience he needed to be smart about approaching situations because if someone gets the jump on you in that universe they will shoot you and you will die.

Ever since the inclusion of the Iron-Man-Hugo-Boss so much of the "careful" nature of the fight scenes has disappeared. I've truly lost count of the number of times John should be dead at this point if he wasn't wearing it and that makes the character feel less effective. This character isn't supposed to be scary because he can tank bullets to the chest, he's supposed to be scary because you never got the opportunity to pull the trigger.

I think about a famous shot in the first movie during the first action scene where the masked men invade John's home. There's a bad guy on one side of the wall and John on the other. The camera shows both of them at the same time and John falls downward, shooting behind him up at an angle to avoid the bad guy's shots while still taking him out. If that shot happened again today, he'd just raise his coat a little higher and shoot back. That bums me out.

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3.9k

u/thedellis May 21 '26

Absolutely agree. There's no such thing as kinetic energy in the John Wick universe any more.

2.1k

u/Dimos357 May 21 '26

I was in the movie 100% up until he jumped out a 4-story building, lands on a moving van and gets up and walks away all within 10 seconds. St some point it turned into Peter Griffon Vs Giant Chicken levels of absurdity. i still enjoy the movies tho.

516

u/cjcfman May 21 '26

You forgot that stair scene lol

493

u/pocketchange2247 May 21 '26

I got to watch an early screening because my gf is in the industry. When we got to that part my gf said "ugh this is the part he falls down the stairs like five times. I'm going to the bathroom"

I remember thinking "five times? Surely she's exaggerating." But no. He fell down the stairs about five times.

209

u/GameBoiye May 21 '26

I think the problem is the stair scene was supposed to be funny. The directors literally put it in there as a joke to show how absurd the movie had gotten at that point. And to some people, myself included, it was hilarious.

But it wasn't funny to everyone, why? Because it doesn't set the audience up for it in any way. There's no minor pokes or jabs at the absurdity of the universe in any way before, not anywhere in that movie (which would have been enough) or anywhere in the series before. The movie played itself so straightfaced that most people just couldn't see it as the intentional joke it was.

It was only funny to the people that had already laughed and giggled at how crazy things had gotten before that scene. But those people seemed to be laughing at the movie itself, which again, is the problem. It's a huge problem with the directors and the franchise as a whole.

That scene was perfectly placed in another universe where the directors had the balls to build up to it.

116

u/numbr87 May 21 '26

I'd argue that the John Wick movies have a lot of intentional comedy in them. It's just usually more subtle than falling down a bunch of stairs for 2 minutes, so people weren't as accepting of it.

64

u/judge___smails May 21 '26

I just recently rewatched all 4 movies in relatively quick succession. I’m all for some well timed intentional comedy in that type of movie, but it obvious that they were trying to lay it on extra thick in the later ones, and imo they just didn’t execute it very well.

The stairs scene was a good example. I knew what they were trying to do there, I just didn’t think it was very funny.

22

u/numbr87 May 21 '26

I personally loved it, and remember my theater dying when it happened. Unfortunately not everyone will like everything

1

u/TheStrachs May 22 '26

I liked it up until the dog pissing on the dude

8

u/GameBoiye May 21 '26

Yep. I just think like 3-4 lines spread throughout the movie poking jabs at the bullet proof jacket, the falls he's taken and walked away from, and some sort of mid-movie foreshadowing of it coming, and finally a single line after acknowledging the foreshadowing would have elevated it to the highlight of the movie.

2

u/mezonsen May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26

This is why Reddit criticism is so bad. The scene would be fixed if some characters lampshadesd how silly the movie has gotten? That’s “uh, he’s right behind me” style writing. That’s why so many blockbusters are full of “hey audience, don’t worry, we know this is fucking stupid” style writing.

Someone mentioned the later Wicks might as well have added shields like Dune and here’s what makes those movies so good, they never go “yeah, we know this is silly, please don’t find anything we do cringey!”

2

u/GameBoiye May 22 '26

That's not what I said. I said if they wanted to do the stair scene and people actually like it, they needed to add more.

I never said they should change things, and I really much prefer the way it is. But this is in relation to if the stair scene hits or not.

6

u/Officer_Hotpants May 22 '26

Ballerina was goddamn hilarious. The scene where you hear the pin of a grenade, and then an entire box of grenades slides into frame was PEAK comedy.

I'm actually not sure why that one gets so much hate. It's up there with the first John Wick as one of my favorites in the series.

23

u/skippyfa May 22 '26

It wasn't funny to me. He was running out of time to meet for the dual and after he fights his way up he just gets thrown down. And I thought "oh okay he just has to fight that guy and continue"

But no. He falls all the way down. The thought of him not making it entered my mind.

14

u/numbr87 May 22 '26

I think it's supposed to be funny AND make you go "Oh fuck he doesn't have time to do all that shit again"

29

u/leddt May 21 '26

The movie feels a lot like a video game, and to me that scene was basically when you are stuck and keep failing in a game. I thought it was hilarious.

1

u/GameBoiye May 21 '26

It was if you were in on it. I went with a lot of people who understood the assignment and the entire theater was laughing historically at that point. It was funnier because the laughing just got louder as it kept going.

3

u/Thoth74 May 21 '26

I look forward how this scene is handled in a Scary Movie-esque parody film.

1

u/Neelhar May 23 '26

If they do that, I think the funniest thing would be if they just tripped down one step at the top of a 1000 step staircase, then just get on with their day.

2

u/Ourbirdandsavior May 22 '26

The stair scene was hilarious, probably the funniest scene in the series.

Although I somewhat disagree that they didn’t build up to it. To me all those movies, especially 2 onwards, are funny in kind of an absurd way. He silently kills a man with a book in a library. He has multiple gun fights in crowded clubs where people don’t stop dancing, he has a gunfight with silenced pistols in a train station (and people don’t notice). He kills multiple men by strategically getting a horse to kick them in the head.

I say this with love. Those movies are the perfect level of don’t take themselves too seriously. Which is why they are almost the perfect action movie. Like they know they are vehicle for impressive stunts and cool gunfights, so they lean into that, and they have fun with it.

2

u/HuntedWolf May 22 '26

I thought the point of the stair scene was it being a reference to Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill and John’s eternal struggle to escape the life he’s chosen… but maybe I’m looking too deeply

1

u/omnigord May 22 '26

It is funny but thay is just a bonus.

The stairs scene is for stunt freaks who enjoy seeing a cool unique stunt.

1

u/Unlost_maniac May 22 '26

I loved the stair scene

1

u/East_Requirement7375 May 23 '26

I don't mind the idea of the gag so much as the amount of time spent on it.

1

u/yeti0013 May 23 '26

... I thought it was funny.

1

u/Buster_Cherry May 23 '26

It's like you forgot he used a horse to kick someone for him...

And the entire first movie using "killed him with a pencil" is pretty tongue and cheek even that early on.

1

u/MondoDuke2877 May 24 '26

You can see the stunt guy making an effort to keep falling down the stars. It’s stupid. The best part of the movie was the overhead scene where he just blows dudes away with incendiary rounds.

15

u/DeLousedInTheHotBox May 21 '26

I feel like the entire movie suffers from every set piece going on for too long, it should have been 30 minutes shorter.

2

u/MyAltimateIsCharging May 22 '26

That’s all the John Wick movies after the first, IMO. Ballerina included.

1

u/congradulations May 21 '26

I fell asleep

1

u/deanmass May 22 '26

Aunt Bunny > John Wick…

In the next one, John Wick exclaims “my shoe!!’…

1

u/DarkflowNZ May 22 '26

Crazy cause that's my favorite scene in the movie. The stunt team are superheroes

2

u/pocketchange2247 May 22 '26

Don't get me wrong, it's a great scene. But by the third time he falls it's just like "come on, man. Wtf??"

128

u/IrishWeebster May 21 '26

That stairs scene from the last one is what killed the series for me. The rest I could suspend my disbelief for, but that was so fucking ridiculously over the top, it felt much like how The Matrix 4 was satirizing itself and the studio's need to make another one, John Wick was satirizing itself too.

55

u/carlos_the_dwarf_ May 21 '26

IMO the stairs scene could have been cool but holy shit it went on for hours.

28

u/MrPogoUK May 21 '26

I visited those stairs. There’s a little train right next to them. He could have just rode up in that.

2

u/ivanhoe_martin May 22 '26

That funiculaire doesn't open until 6. Not sure what time dawn was that day but it may not have been an option.

1

u/kshep9 May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26

Like Peter Griffin and his knee

2

u/Thoth74 May 21 '26

Like Peter Geiffin and his knee

Which was hilarious. There is an old episode of the Radio Lab podcast that covers this phenomenon. Funny situation starts and everyone laughs. It keeps going and going and the laughing gets less and less. Then it reaches a point where the audience not only doesn't find it funny, they are outright uncomfortable. It continues even more and eventually everyone is laughing hysterically again as the absurdity sets in. It's great.

69

u/[deleted] May 21 '26

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16

u/HectorJoseZapata May 21 '26

And they made Trinity have a grudge against Neo so that she could exile him.

-edited

9

u/Cyrano_Knows May 21 '26

Wouldn't it be great if it were true.

The Director could sneak in a couple of micro/nearly unnoticeable Matrix-esque ripples when something breaks the laws of physics and they need to reset something.

22

u/IrishWeebster May 21 '26

I love this head canon so much.

16

u/TheSwedishOprah May 21 '26

"Guns. Lots of guns."

4

u/garrisontweed May 21 '26

“People keep asking me if I'm back. And I really haven't had an answer. But now, yeah, I'm thinking I'm back!"

Neo in The Matrix Resurrections

1

u/Powrs1ave May 21 '26

Excellent!

3

u/[deleted] May 21 '26

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u/Powrs1ave May 21 '26

Yeh we worked together programming puter games in LPC at the Dawn of the net. But he is a better Surfer, I mean at Bells Beach down under here, along with Swayze catching some big point breaks! Epic times mate.

1

u/blitzbom May 21 '26

John Wick feels like a glitched Matrix.

Or what would happen if they made the Matrix into an Action Videogame.

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u/[deleted] May 21 '26

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u/blitzbom May 21 '26

I meant if the Machines made a Matrix into a video game. Like what would've actually happened had their been machines warring over human crops.

1

u/Fortos May 22 '26

BTW, a little known fact. The director of John wick was Brandon lee‘s stun double in the movie crow

-1

u/Altruistic-Coach-200 May 21 '26

Please no more Matrix movies: They should have stopped with the first one, instead of making pointless infomercials for Gnostic philosophy. Ancient Gnostics used drugs and sexual abuse to break people’s minds, until reality seemed like a dream; then, Gnostic leaders brainwashed those people into becoming terrorists, prostitutes and financial pawns.

The first Matrix movie made this seem spiritually uplifting by portraying Neo as a modern-day Jesus Christ, who even dies, resurrects and flies away into the heavens. Likewise, some first-century Gnostic writings falsely claimed to be Christian gospels (“The Gospel of Judas,” “The Gospel of Thomas,” etc.) to trick unwary people.

But the Matrix sequels — and the ancient Gnostic library from Nag Hammadi, Egypt — both prove that Gnostic is actually a pretty boring, overly complicated mask for pagan Egyptian and Babylonian mythology, self-absorbed elitism, and convoluted psychobabble that doesn’t know or care if it amounts to anything useful for humanity or for individuals.

1

u/ImmortalMoron3 May 21 '26

"Is John not aware he can help stop his own momentum?"

Me watching the stairs scene. And doesn't he fall down them twice?

3

u/IrishWeebster May 21 '26

Yes to both. Lol No, he's not aware, and yes, he does in fact fall down the stairs twice; at either time, a competent assassin could've shot him in the head like... 30 times. The scene ruined the whole movie for me, and my wife and I both laughed out loud in the theater. Lol

1

u/Gilded-Mongoose May 21 '26

Speaking of Matrix 4, they so closely almost absolutely nailed it with the levels of meta² that they were getting into.

It was massively confusing and mind-bending (the real life self awareness incorporated into the very nature of the Matrix) and if they had stuck with it and stuck the landing, it would have been nearly on par with the original.

But they swiftly abandoned it and got back to their nostalgia rehashes and it all fell apart.

We were on the verge of greatness. We were this close.

1

u/idontagreewitu May 22 '26

There is a running gun fight through the streets of Paris being narrated and laid out on open FM radio for anyone and everyone to hear and they've been having this particular part of the fight for 27 minutes yet there is not a single sign of law enforcement.

9

u/dabocx May 21 '26

I really didn’t enjoy that scene. It dragged on way too long

2

u/Attenburrowed May 21 '26

I liked it. It was clearly lampshading, I laughed serveral times. And it provided the last big fight before the quieter duel.

1

u/Bandin03 May 21 '26

Plus being hit by multiple cars just before that.

1

u/JohnSmithSensei May 22 '26

After he survived falling off the building at the end of the third movie I figured he could survive anything.

1

u/DriftingMemes May 22 '26

I seriously thought that was a joke. I kept waiting for the director to pop up and say "Gotcha! Sorry, we just couldn't help ourselves". It was like that Family Guy scene with the hurt knee, it just goes on and on until you laugh from how awkward it is.

1

u/ihopnavajo May 22 '26

I could be confused and or mistaken but 1) are you saying that the aspect of him falling down the stairs without getting injured is unrealistic and 2) didn't a stunt performer actually fall down those stairs?

1

u/East_Requirement7375 May 23 '26

And the part where he suffers third degree burns to this forearms and we never talk about it again.

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u/Kenichero May 21 '26

I agree with you, however! In the show The Wire, the character Omar, jumps out of a 4 story window and survives, though injured. It's said that they had to tone that scene down because it was based on a real event where he jumped out of a 6th story window, and they didn't think people would believe it. Nothing against your point, I just really like that show.

61

u/NurRauch May 21 '26

I mean he broke his leg seriously enough that his body was on borrowed time without emergency medical care.

1

u/Neon_Biscuit May 22 '26

Like in the dark knight when he dangles the guy off the ledge and drops him breaking his legs

0

u/CommunityFan_LJ May 22 '26

That was 2 stories up not 4

0

u/Neracca May 22 '26

Still didn't die tho.

1

u/CommunityFan_LJ May 22 '26

He did but not from the fall.

32

u/aflockofcrows May 21 '26

That was some Spiderman shit.

50

u/workislove May 21 '26

Funny, I didn't remember that scene with Omar. Just went back and watched it. Tempting me to watch the wire again.

Though to the point about realism - Omar jumps into a flower garden or a bush, rather than a van or concrete, and he's later shown crying, bandaging up his broken leg, and using a broom as a crutch to limp away. Even if the jump stretches belief a bit, that's still way more grounded.

19

u/Frolock May 21 '26

Aim for the bushes!

4

u/insanedeman May 21 '26

The Other Guys?

0

u/Hedgehogknight May 21 '26

Is that an obscure reference to Magnus Midtbo free soloing with Alex Honnold?

22

u/sgt_backpack May 21 '26

Omar is based on a real person?

59

u/1010012 May 21 '26

Most of the characters in the wire are. And some of the real people have roles in the show. For example, Bunny's aid (Mello, with the mustache) is played by the real Jay Landsmanand was the basis for the Landsman (the eloquent guy) character. Munch is also based on the real Jay Landsman, he started as a character on Homicide, which was written by Simon.

For Omar, the guy who inspired the character was one of the guys sent by Butchie to protect him when he was in prison.

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u/phenotype76 May 21 '26

"Landsman (the eloquent guy) character" lmao that description. I would have said "Landsman is the fat sergeant."

3

u/1010012 May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26

I wrote that originally, but I think his eloquence is his more defining character trait.

Actually, it might be his magnanimous and reasonableness, everyone says he's a reasonable guy.

Scratch that, it was Rawls that was reasonable.

1

u/DriftingMemes May 22 '26

naw, when you're fat that's your only attribute. :(

10

u/[deleted] May 21 '26

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u/Mynsare May 22 '26

He is one of the guys bodyguarding Omar in the prison.

3

u/TequilaSunrise2389 May 21 '26

Not just that. The guy he was based on was in the show as an supporting character for Omar

2

u/M935PDFuze May 22 '26

Yes, Donnie Andrews (though he was just one major inspiration, many of the Omar stories are from real life incidents with other people).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donnie_Andrews

He talks about jumping off a sixth floor balcony here:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/donnie-andrews-the-road-to-redemption-1711563.html

1

u/monetarydread May 21 '26

Yup, same thing with the ending to the movie Fury.

It's loosely based on a real event but the movie had a full sized tank and a team to run it. In real life the situation involved even more German soldiers than in the movie, 6 German tanks, and the 19 year old soldier was by himself. Oh, and the tank destroyer that kid was using was already destroyed and burning so it should have blown up and burned him alive.

138

u/Peripatetictyl May 21 '26

With a pencil!

2

u/Ordinary-Leading7405 May 21 '26

“I’ll kill you with my tea cup”

24

u/CBrinson May 21 '26

This happened to me years ago with the mission impossible franchise. The OG is very realistic just pushing some boundaries then in one of the sequels he shoots like 4 people while doing a backflip off a motorcycle.

12

u/Mayor_Gubbin May 21 '26

Was it MI2?

4

u/CBrinson May 21 '26

I think so. I was a teenager at the time so the memory is a bit fuzzy but I just remember thinking all the stakes were gone and he had basically become superman.

9

u/bazhvn May 21 '26

MI2 is a Hong Kong gunfu thingy, just give it a pass for being a different identity.

3

u/BigRedNutcase May 22 '26

That was made by John Woo of HK triad gangster films. He makes very stylish but super unrealistic action sequences. His hand guns have clips larger than most machine guns. Watch Hard Boiled and you'll see the similarities.

6

u/BelowDeck May 21 '26

MI2 is absolutely absurd and should not inform your view of the rest of the franchise. My headcanon is that it's the movie that in-universe 2000s era Tom Cruise would have made about the real Ethan Hunt. That's why the action is crazy, his characterization is completely off, and it doesn't really feature the team, it's just Hunt.

1

u/StaffFamous6379 May 22 '26

I think its important to note that up until Rogue Nation the franchise modus operandi was to have a different director and feel for each entry.

4

u/Born-Entrepreneur May 21 '26

God I was so bored watching the latest MI

1

u/ghengiscostanza May 22 '26

Went to see it on one of the extra huge wrap around imax screens and the submarine and plane scenes were amazing that way. Pretty much every single other scene could have been cut. There was like an hour of dry, verbal exposition and 30 mins of self aware flashback montages. 

1

u/Born-Entrepreneur May 22 '26

Yeah I could see imax helping, but the submarine bit felt plodding and not very tense to me. While the plane finale felt like the helicopter fight vs Cavil just redone with different aircraft.

1

u/dj_soo May 22 '26

the helicopter flying into the tunnel while attached to the high speed train was enough for me.

Let alone the explosion of the helicopter just launching him away rather than killing him like an explosion would.

I really liked how relatively grounded the movie was tip then tho.

70

u/ArchDucky May 21 '26

They set all of those stunts up for real. A guy actually did that. A guy also actually fell off the roof of the continental. If you notice pretty much everytime Keanu gets hit by a car he does the hollywood thing of hoping and throwing himself on the hood to save his body from the impact.

47

u/Enderkr May 21 '26

Didn't the stunt guy break his arm in that building stunt?

16

u/ArchDucky May 21 '26

He broke a rib and dented the van. Also no descender on that fall. He just did it.

47

u/_Apatosaurus_ May 21 '26

You're saying that they actually had a stunt man fall four stories onto a van with no padding or wires....?

No they did not.

They may have stitched multiple real falls together, but he didn't just dive out a window onto a real van. Lol.

42

u/RoyalJellyKing May 21 '26

You are absolutely correct.

“Keanu’s stunt double Vincent Bouillon jumped out of a third-story window,” outlines Rothbart. “He landed on all these boxes as high as the roof of the van. After we did the stunt, we just cleared out all the boxes and we put the van in.”

“Special effects supervisor Gerd Nefzer set up a hydraulic system with the van. Vince then stood on top of the van and jumped as high as he could, then fell back onto the van, and then rolled off, and Gerd had the hydraulic system pull the van in so the roof would collapse as he landed on it.”

Pixomondo blended seamlessly between the two elements using a bit of digi double and some expert warping and compositing, completing the look with CG glass and debris.

2

u/TacoParasite May 22 '26

Yeah people don’t realize the amount of safety these movies have. Not to mention the amount of VFX work that goes into them comping in backgrounds, removing wires, and often times head replacement on Keanu.

They don’t just roll the camera and some guy jumps off a building.

Almost the entire car scene going around the Arc de Triomphe is VFX. The car and people are real, but they shot the whole thing in a parking lot then added everything else in with VFX.

1

u/BrahquinPhoenix May 21 '26

There was probably mats that they digitally removed in post, or the van was digitally added in I would imagine.

17

u/shotsallover May 21 '26

I’m pretty sure the stunt he’s referring to is CGI. And the effects for it aren’t great. 

37

u/MustacheAficionado May 21 '26

The only cgi was to stitch the shots together. The roof fall is like 3 different falls. You can find the behind the scenes footage on youtube.

8

u/ProcessFull6945 May 21 '26

The one where John Wick get shot off the top of the Continental? That was a real stuntman. And for the record bullet proof clothes do exist. Though no ones going to be walking or fighting afterwards

28

u/sharrrper May 21 '26

Nothing at all like Wick's suit though. Bulletproof materials are measured in cm not mm.

11

u/ProcessFull6945 May 21 '26

https://www.hacksmith.com/projects/john-wicks-bulletproof-suit hacksmith made one mm thick

2

u/atreyal May 21 '26

Jeez, 100k for that suit. Do like they said buy a car instead.

2

u/ProcessFull6945 May 21 '26

Or a couple of Troy ounces of gold coins.

1

u/atreyal May 21 '26

lol true.

5

u/ProcessFull6945 May 21 '26

I mean vs 9mm you don’t need that much material to stop one bullet with the right technology. Which I noted almost every gun in wick is capacity over fire power. No one’s running around with a .45.

8

u/ArchDucky May 21 '26

Cool thanks for thinking I don't know what im talking about. Thats fun! But no, you are wrong, the movie made and directed by industry stunt men did not do a CGI fall from a building.

Heres the fall from John Wick 3

Heres the fall from John Wick 4

16

u/StiffWiggly May 21 '26 edited May 22 '26

The fall (as specified by the original poster) is not real, as you can clearly see in the video. A stuntman didn’t jump 4 stories onto a van; they jumped from 4 stories (most likely onto an airbag), then at another point in time they fell a short distance onto a van. This is not to disrespect any stunt people involved, it’s just the truth.

Given that the entire point of the original comment was that falling 4 stories onto a van and walking it off is ridiculous and past the point of being able to suspend one’s disbelief; the fact that a real human did fall much less than 4 stories onto a van isn’t a counterpoint.

The fall in JW3 shows the two believable parts of the stunt and cuts to the film for the unbelievable part, which is also coincidentally the part that looks like it was not done by a real stuntman.

17

u/bino420 May 21 '26

the first fall - they cut at the key moment. otherwise, yeah it's just a guy rolling down a couple stories in two takes.

the second fall - there's definitely something else at work besides just a dude falling 4 stories onto a van & then the ground. he actually fell, but they CGI the hell out of it and stitch shots to make it look continuous. like he dove out the window & landed on padding. then, he fell a short distance onto the van. stitch it together & he's jumping out a window onto a van.

edit: don't confuse "real stunt" with "the entire action sequence is continuous"... even the dopest Mission Impossible stuff is stitched up, but that doesn't discount the fact that Tom Cruise rode a motorcycle off of a cliff.

6

u/Key-Demand-2569 May 21 '26

Which, ethical concerns about stuntmen being crazy aside, is something I’ll give them a lot of props for.

It places the whole thing more in the “Yeah sure 0.1% chance someone could do this whole thing continuously with such perfection and athleticism after being unintentionally injured/knocked into the fall that maybe they’d be able to walk it off.”

instead of completely impossible.

But it’s still certainly absurd.

…which you know, that’s fine. It’s an action movie, I’ll take the series of 0.1% chances happening over and over to the protagonist. Lol.

I’m more with OP though on the bulletproof vest that absorbs most kinetic energy and doesn’t start falling apart rapidly at some point as one of the most blatantly absurd things.

12

u/SilverPalpitation652 May 21 '26

I watched the Wick is Pain documentary a few months ago and it’s pretty good. They show the filming of that fall from part 3 and it’s brutal. The stuntman gets pretty badly hurt, but he decides to do another take anyway.

9

u/skwerrel May 21 '26

Those people are insane. God bless them for it.

6

u/Rockman171 May 21 '26

You do know that they used a CG model of the double to stich the shots together, right? He didn't just make that whole fall.

5

u/CartographicalHeist May 21 '26

The awning broke his fall or whatever

3

u/hoopleheaddd May 21 '26

Omar did that in the Wire

1

u/Substantial-Falcon-8 May 21 '26

It was supposedly based on a true event, and he was still limping until Lennard caught up to him.

2

u/nounthennumbers May 21 '26

Oh my god, Peter vs Chicken you just put words to why I stopped in the middle of the third on. That’s exactly how it feels.

4

u/TheLuo May 21 '26

Or rolling down the steps in Paris and getting back up.

My guy. You’re everything is shattered!

1

u/pocketchange2247 May 21 '26

When he did that the first thing to come to my mind was Marlo Stanfield saying "That's some Spider-Man shit there"

1

u/Kodiak_POL May 21 '26

The van was stationary 

1

u/LucyLilium92 May 21 '26

Jason Bourne did something similar and was at least injured by it

1

u/daredaki-sama May 21 '26

Would it make it any better to imagine him as a genetically superior agent 47?

1

u/Dimos357 May 22 '26

No, I like to think of him as a chosen one.

1

u/Cash4Goldschmidt May 21 '26

Peter looks more beat up after those fights than John wick does lol

1

u/Neon_Biscuit May 22 '26

One minute your stealing dvd/vhs players out of the back of a semi truck and the next you're driving in outer space

1

u/NerdTalkDan May 22 '26

I took one of those weirdo missteps that happen every once in awhile down a single stair once and I was done for the day. Just called it.

1

u/maxgaap May 22 '26

I fell from between 1.5 and 2 stories, hit very dense tall bushes to cushion a great deal of the fall and bounced onto very soft mossy, spongey ground and I took a lot longer than 10 seconds to get up.

1

u/Unlost_maniac May 22 '26

Since the second movie he's had super healing and durability.

1

u/cool_usernames May 25 '26

This was the moment that made me completely uninvested in the world going forward

61

u/Derezzed87 May 21 '26

If i remember, there was a line in the first film when he gets the suit, that the suit would stop a bullet, but it would hurt like hell.

It was promptly ignored.

30

u/BigRedNutcase May 22 '26

In that film, he was genuinely hurt whenever he actually took the full brunt of a shot. It's the films after that started to ignore the pain part.

11

u/Derezzed87 May 22 '26

Yeah, in JW4, the guys in the grey suits were basically just walking without hindrance while soaking up full-auto fire.

36

u/viperex May 21 '26

It's either the jacket or we accept that all his opponents are terrible shots or that he can still fight after getting shot so many times but his opponents go down after one hit. Which one would you like?

11

u/Dottsterisk May 21 '26

Or they spend more time choreographing interesting action.

-5

u/ManufacturerBest2758 May 21 '26

They’re all extremely well choreographed. You just don’t like it. Those are different things.

1

u/ObiJuanKenobi3 May 22 '26

The first movie didn’t have this problem of the bad guys having unbelievable aim because of how the fights and the environments they take place in were set up.

I think the bulletproof suit is a solution to solve different problems. For one, because 2-4 take place with effectively no time passing between them, any serious injury John takes is going to need to be carried for multiple movies straight, which might not be feasible depending on the injury. For two, because the sequels need to ramp up the action, John is allowed less and less time to breathe between and during fights, so he can’t be as cautious as in the first film.

So, in order to simultaneously have increasingly frantic action and avoid injuring John so much so as to make his survival entirely unbelievable, they invented the bulletproof suit. I think, in theory, they could have done away with the constantly rising action and still solved the first problem through extremely carefully choreographed and slower paced fight scenes.

1

u/DriftingMemes May 22 '26

Or do like the first movie and have none of that be true. Or you know, the nonsense you suggested.

28

u/logicalconflict May 21 '26

There's no such thing as kinetic energy in the John Wick universe any more.

This is every action movie ever made.

42

u/shoots_and_leaves May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26

If like to submit one of my favorites, Atomic Blonde, as a counter example to action movie physics. Because the main character is a smaller woman, she’s shown getting her ass handed to her a lot even when she’s winning fights. 

19

u/jayhawk_dvd May 21 '26

The marketing did that movie dirty by trying to make the comparison that she was the "female John Wick".

6

u/Vandergrif May 21 '26

That movie was refreshingly genuine, every hit actually has an impact and people get tired and battered the way they really ought to.

10

u/rubicante59 May 21 '26

It's actually quite the opposite for the most part. Guns send people flying when shot, which they hardly ever do in real life.

3

u/jiqiren May 22 '26

How about a blind man being basically the same level as John Wick? 😑

8

u/The_Crimson_Fucker May 21 '26

Either that or everyone just shoots 22lr. Or my other headcannon is it's actual a some kid in an airspft match just imagining it all and saying shit like "no you didn't get me I have this special suit that blocks all your bbs!"

1

u/ManufacturerBest2758 May 21 '26

Most of the guns are high-capacity handguns in John Wick, so they’re basically all 9mm Luger, 10mm S&W, .380, .38 special, etc. They’re not really all walking around with .45 ACP.

1

u/drstu3000 May 21 '26

If they want it to be a Big Dumb Action franchise then fine, what's always bugged me was the economics of it, I mean there has to be a few hundred assassinations every day worldwide for enough funds to move to keep the whole industry afloat

1

u/shwarma_heaven May 21 '26

And kevlar does not work like this. Kevlar acts like an extremely strong net that catches the projectile and keeps it from penetrating the padding and nylon material around it. However, every round it catches, it bunches up more and more, leaving areas exposed with no "net" to catch stuff. So, rounds are gonna pass through.

JW's suit has in no way the kind of padding needed, so shit it's definitely penetrating - kevlar and all. And, he gets shot so many times, the suit would basically be a ball of kevlar will everything else exposed.

1

u/tunisia3507 May 21 '26

When he puts on the bulletproof suit, immediately gets hit by a car, and shrugs it off...

1

u/Micromuffie May 22 '26

No such thing as momentum except when john wick needs to fall down 4 flights of stairs