Review of John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (2019) by Texasvet0407 — 01 Jun 2019

Very rarely will the third chapter of a film franchise garner the best rating on IMDB or any other aggregate movie review website, for that matter. As far as film franchises go, most tend to drop off and just become cash cows that are created for the sake of making loads of money. The Transformers and Terminator franchises are a perfect example of this. Then there is John Wick: Chapter 3 and it has quite simply, broken all of the aforementioned rules and may have set a new standard. The plot is effectively laid out for you in the first ninety seconds of the movie. John Wick is excommunicated, and there's a $14m bounty on his head. Following that brief bit of exposition are two hours of endlessly entertaining action, and while the film does keep you engrossed with its sense of mystery and intrigue surrounding this world of allegiances and deception, it's the thrill of the chase that ultimately matters.

Parabellum maintains a rather cutthroat pace throughout, right from the frantic opening half hour through to the brutality of the final act. There's a lot more humor on show in this installment, which works due to how ludicrous some of the action has now become.

If you want depth, character development, and story-telling then go watch The Godfather. In a grade A action film, the pacing is more important than depth, the choreography is more important than character development and the story is only used to get the hero from one set-piece to the next. Parabellum is absolutely relentless in that it's ridiculous in the best ways while being loud and violent from start to finish. Chapter 3 feels like a celebration of the action genre, showing no franchise fatigue and referencing a number of great action films in the process, even a nod to the original action man, Buster Keaton, graces the film in its opening moments. The first two films delivered hard-hitting action but Parabellum takes it to a whole new level for the franchise, with books, horses and dogs playing a major part in doing so.

Suspend your disbelief and strap yourself in because John Wick is back in spectacular fashion. Over the course of three films, he's earned his place in the action hero hall of fame in a franchise that should be regarded as one of the greatest within the action genre.