John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum
The first 30 minutes of the movie was hands down the best action movie I’ve ever seen. Just a quick aside so you know where I’m coming from. I’m a sucker for action movies and my absolute favorite is Crank because the plot literally doesn’t allow the movie to get boring. But anyway, the first 30 minutes has John fighting assassins that are trying to collect the bounty on his head. Every single kill was unique, and it was almost like watching a slasher flick, where you can’t wait to see the next crazy way someone is going to die. I was ready to watch 2 hours of just John Wick killing people in crazy ways but then of course this pesky thing called plot/world building has to rear its ugly head.
Ever since the first movie the writers have been establishing this world and they’ve done an incredible job. But this time it just feels like they’re expanding lore just to keep the franchise going. After the first 30 minutes, John ends up in Casablanca and lo and behold there’s another continental there. But unlike the previous movies where they delve a little into the story of the area and that particular continental this one doesn’t at all. The franchise tends to gloss over backstory to further the plot and this time its egregious. In Casablanca John meets Sofia (Halle Berry), who he apparently has a long backstory with, basically he’s a great assassin and he helped her a long time ago.
The two of them go do stuff and it ends in a big shootout that is a staple of the franchise. From this point on there are no more fun kills and it’s the same old run and gun from the other two movies. Then they throw in a lot more world building with random characters that just lead to more shootouts. What I really loved about the first movie was that it was a pure action movie. A simple event domino effects into this huge revenge story that sprinkles hints of what that world is like to the viewer. This movie just seemed hellbent on world building with John just acting as a catalyst to introduce new characters and dynamics.
I was disappointed in the motorcycle scene that was in the trailer. It was a cool concept but the execution in the movie was boring because at that point you’ve already seen John fight off people that were chasing him in vehicles and the formula is the same in this sequence. And that’s the main problem I have with this movie, it feels the same as the other two movies. The shoot outs are all well-choreographed, but I’ve seen it before. Even the setting for the final confrontation in this film was almost a carbon copy of the one from the last film. I don’t know where else this franchise can really go from here.
There’s also no real tension in the film because you know John Wick is going to win. He has the greatest weapon of all, plot armor. There was one scene in the movie where something happens to John that I thought would have some sort of impact on the story later but nope it has no effect on anything. At the end of the day was it was a John Wick movie for better or worse. It’s basically the same movie you’ve paid to see twice already. The first 30 minutes really had me excited for what was to come but it quickly went back to the tried and true formula that was previously established.
I’m having a hard time writing about this movie because I am just kind of indifferent to it. On one hand I really wanted to like it, but it just wasn’t fun. It was visually pretty but just boring otherwise. There are zero stakes so therefore zero reason to care. I think if they had cut this movie down to an hour and a half rather than having it run over 2 hours it could have been a more fun experience.
TL; DR: John Wick kills everything. Yay! 5 puppies out of 10.
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