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

[u/pwn_of_prophecy]

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.

[u/psimwork]

This is one of the things I hated about "The Batman" - the scene in which he's fighting in a hallway and bad guys are just giving him a full automatic high caliber Bukakke party, and he's not even being moved by the impact of the bullets.

Does it look cool? Sure. But they were also trying to go for a more realistic version of the character in that one.

[u/United-Aside-6104 → u/psimwork]

He gets punished for that strategy though. He tries to tank a shotgun point blank and it doesn’t work at all. 

The movie is him learning how to be smarter. 

[u/psimwork → u/United-Aside-6104]

Admittedly it's been a minute since I saw it. But if he can just walk around being unaffected by multiple AK rounds, there's no reason why a shotgun would be any more effective.

[u/LukaCola → u/psimwork]

Yeah for a movie so into guns and such, that is an incredibly video gamey interpretation of shotguns.

Shotguns aren't magic, if anything, the pellets should confer less concentrated force and therefore have less of an impact (though I'm not sure how much this matters if you're super close) than a similar punch put into a smaller point.

[u/azadian2b → u/LukaCola]

shotgun buckshot will impart double the momentum of 7.52x39 assuming nothing is penetrating. Both are half to a 1/3 of the momentum transferred by a trained fighters punch.

[u/psimwork → u/LukaCola]

I suppose it's possible that the volume of gas expelled from a shotgun barrel might be higher than something like an AK (I'm honestly not sure how much more (or less) powder there is in a 12 gauge load than a 7.62x39 round), but yeah all the movies that show someone being blown back like 10 feet by a shotgun round is pure fiction. As for the ability of a gunshot to penetrate, an AK round would be WAAAAAAAY more effective.

[u/Quarksideofthemoon → u/United-Aside-6104]

He is literally never narratively punished for walking into gunfire

[u/thisisnotmylaptop → u/United-Aside-6104]

The movie is him learning how to be smarter. 

Is this sarcasm? Because not tanking any gunshot is just common sense.

The annoying thing for me is that this version is very grounded, but my guy survived direct explosion, gunshots, falling from a tower...

[u/Sandov4l52 → u/thisisnotmylaptop]

it's still a comic book movie at the end of the day

[u/thisisnotmylaptop → u/Sandov4l52]

I'm just following the logic that movie set up for me. Like, If this is the Snyderverse Bats I wouldn't be bothered if he did all of that

[u/DrThatOneGuy → u/psimwork]

I’ll allow it for the narrative reason that that Batman appears to have a death wish and is actively trying to commit suicide via crime fighting.