Review of John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (2019) by Colginator — 18 May 2019

Back when the original John Wick’s trailer came out most people expected that it would just be your run of the mill revenge movie starring Keanu Reeves, just with a dog. But then it ended up being one of the best action movies of the past decade, showing us great fight sequences in film at a time when Liam Neeson was still learning how to jump over a fence in less than 15 different cuts. Then John Wick: Chapter 2 came out, further raising the bar with even more ambitious fight choreography and expanding on the world of assassins. Now John Wick 3 cements the franchise as one of the most consistently entertaining action trilogies.

Starting less than an hour after the previous film, John Wick is on the run after after being given a 14 million dollar bounty on his head for killing one of the leaders of the assassins organisation, which every assassin wants a piece of. And it turns out there are a lot of assassins in the world, as no matter where Wick goes he’s swarmed by opponents at every turn, including armored SWAT teams, the villains from the raid movies and the host of Iron Chef. In a film that’s mostly non-stop action, it never gets dull or repetitive. In large part, this is because the filmmakers have a strong understanding on how to incorporate their surroundings into the film to add variety to these sequences. Largely this is because John Wick is able to improvise with using anything as a weapon, with John using knives, guns, motorbikes, dogs, books, his belt, horses and his own fists to keep each fight unique. Other times it’s just a strong understanding of how to shoot the sequence to keep the sequences kinetic and visually interesting. At the centre of this is Keanu Reeves himself, who put months of training to pull off some of these unbelievable sequences. Though a lot of credit also has to go to everyone behind the scenes for pulling off so many ambitious sequences. Especially for one sequence which takes place in a room made almost entirely from glass which had me genuinely wondering how they were able to perform these sequences without anyone getting seriously injured. As with the previous two films, these brutally fight sequences are often contrasted with just how insane this world of assassins are. Just like the previous films, there aren’t any expository information dumps and instead we just get to see how this world operates and understand the characters history through the way they interact with one another. This time we get to see how the chain of leadership works and how separate factions have developed amongst these assassins. A big part of building up this world comes from the supporting cast being filled with memorable personalities. The villains aren’t just one note psychotic villains, but instead they have a genuine admiration for John Wick and even end up fanboying when they get the chance to fight him. Even smaller roles like Jason Mantzoukas as the Tick Tock Man leave a memorable impression with relatively little screen time. Though the best addition is definitely Halle Berry. She’s essentially playing the female version of John, having also escaped the life of an assassin and who also has a keen fondness for dogs. She apparently did several months of both combat training and dog training, which she’s able to show off throughout her scenes in a big way.

Also this film franchise has convinced me that at least a tenth of the population in these films must be a part of this organisation since that’s the only way this world could function as it does in the film, which just makes it all the more entertaining. The world itself is so well developed that I’d even be open to seeing some spin-off movies following other assassins like Halle Berry for future films. Though I’m still hoping to see more from Keanu in these films since it does seem like his ideal role and if these films continue the way that they’re going, I expect that John Wick Chapter 4 will end up containing the most ambitious sequences yet.