It’s the middle of May now and we have John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. Another movie I was looking forward to seeing and another movie that found a way to disappoint.
This is a direct follow-up to the previous movie as John Wick is on New York’s most wanted. He’s the most famous assassin in the entire world and at the end of Chapter 2 Winston controlled every assassin and the inhabitants of this city. So I was immediately disappointed that John Wick wasn’t chased down the street by a mob of old grannies or attacked on a bus full of school children that all wanted to kill him. Instead John Wick finds himself in knife fights with ninjas, and I guess that’ll do.
The actual movie is similar to the second movie where John wants to just settle down with his dog, but this time he has a massive hit on his head. The story continues to get more complicated as has been the trend with each release. For the most part it’s pretty good. The opening sequence with John rushing across the city before everyone descends upon him was really enticing. I liked how they introduced Halle Berry’s character into this universe. It wasn’t until the third act that everything became quite muddled and then there is the ending, which I’ll do a quick minor spoiler warning for.
Minor Spoilers Ahead
Even though it wasn’t advertised as such, from where the story was going I thought this would be the last one. So the best way I can describe it is I got Grindelwalded! When you think it’s almost over the movie keeps going and then when you think there is another half hour or so to go the credits roll. I was pretty peeved and felt ripped off which feels like a continuing trend this year with third entries in a franchise. I won’t say too much more, but spinning wheels is what I got after seeing this movie.
Minor Spoiler-Free
Let’s talk about the action because at the end of the day you just want to see John Wick kill some dudes. You won’t be disappointed as the action continues to deliver. In this one it’s a little bit more over the top than previous movies, which didn’t bother me as it feels consistent throughout the movie. They do spice it up a bit, like there’s a cool scene where John Wick is throwing knives at people or when Halle Berry joins the movie she releases her killer mutts on their foes, which was awesome! As I said earlier there are ninjas too and thanks to amazing choreography and camera work their fighting scenes are really great. I’m going to give credit again that I appreciate being able to clearly see the entirety of these fights.
Overall, John Wick Chapter 3 is slightly above standard. Even though there were some things that I found pretty disappointing and annoying I still enjoyed myself for 75-85% of the movie. I’m going with a 7 to 8 out of 10. If you want a solid action movie with a bit of a messy story, then I recommend giving it a watch.
More reviews coming out next week and until then I have been The Blog Complainer, signing out.
