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

Parabellum is an entertaining John Wick film, with some unbelievably great action scenes, but it drops the ball in the story/lore department.

The John Wick movies have always been about cartoony violence, beautifully choreographed combat, and high-octane action. If you thought the action scenes were over the top in the 2nd movie, then Parabellum raises the bar even higher. It's just ridiculous, in a good way. John Wick even kills his enemies with a book! Can you believe it? A book. And you thought killing with a pencil was merely an exaggeration.

I can't praise enough the part where John Wick works with Sofia (Halle Berry) and her trained dogs to fight against waves of enemies. I have never seen such an action scene before. The dogs were so obedient and effective as if you could command a pet in a videogame, and they weren't CGI either. It was marvelous.

However, Parabellum's story is a mess. I know, this series doesn't focus on storytelling, but still there was a core story and some character development for John Wick. This time he has no clear goal, he's being chased by every assassin, he's constantly on the run, desperately going from place to place. This mess shines the most when John Wick goes through a lot of trouble and makes a new promise, only to break it. It defeats the purpose of doing all this in the first place. Where is the strategist John Wick who planned every detail of his hit on Gianna d' Antonio and then survived the soldiers of Santino by planting guns to cover his exit in the second movie?

Also the 3rd movie fails to grow this series' fictional world like Chapter 2. The lore hinted at in the first movies was unique, but now they introduce mundane real-world elements such as the cutting of a finger to prove one's loyalty. Then we got a pathetic Adjudicator and the rather young Elder who runs the High Table. Both characters' logic is messed up, I mean would a member of a secret society obsessed with rules and loyalty really trust a traitor and just forgive them in an instant just because they say "sorry"? And guess what, there is no ending, no resolution, only a cliffhanger to set up a 4th movie. It all feels forced though, not organic. All these problems stem from the so-called franchise fatigue and bloat.

I definitely want to watch a 4th John Wick movie, but next time they'll need to bring a better and more focused story, and not just "lots of guns".