John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum

Dir: Chad Stahelski

2019

***

The John Wick series is being heralded by some as something unique and amazing. I liked the first film – a simple revenge film featuring an assassin whose dog has been shot. I’d go after someone if they’d shot my dog, it made sense, and the fact that he was a sharp-shooting, high-kicking ex-assassin made it all the more fun. I liked how the second film picked up just minutes after the first but it did feel like more of the same. The idea of John Wick 3 was far more interesting than the end result. At this point it is exactly the same film, a slightly different scenario but basically, it’s John Wick fighting more people in various different places. The fight scenes themselves are slightly more gory than the previous films and the fight locations are pretty silly. I usually like gore, the gorier the better, but here I found it all just a tad bit gratuitous and a little too graphic. It didn’t build on either of the previous films and it just felt like a massive indulgence from director Chad Stahelski. Stahelski was Keanu Reeves’ stunt double in the Matrix films and the whole thing is starting to feel like a reunion gig. Apart from Reeves and Laurence Fishburne’s involvement, there is very much a Matrix vibe about the whole thing. It is 100% a passion project for sure, passion is good, but because Stahelski is Reeves’ stunt double once more, as well as the film’s director, it does feel like the film is for him over anybody else. There was a lot I did like about it. Anjelica Huston’s appearance as the Director was an unexpected pleasure and I liked all of the secret society stuff. I quite liked Asia Kate Dillon’s Adjudicator and the idea of the character but the middle part of the film that features Halle Berry and Morocco was a bit slow, a bit pointless and didn’t quite fit with anything else in the series. The version of Morocco shown is the version that people who have never been there think it is like. It’s all very slick and nice to look at, proving once more that stunt people can be talented film makers too but it is a little stunt heavy. Actually, it’s fight heavy more than anything. Obviously revenge films typically feature fights and fighting but I found it got boring quite early on. The last fight in the mystery floor of the New York City Continental was fairly dreadful I thought. It might have been the business to fight connoisseurs but it went on far too long and didn’t make any sense to me. What was that room actually for? It was full of glass, video screens and ancient armor. It made that sequence look like a music video rather than a legitimate scene that fit with the rest of the story. I found it unremarkable, forgettable even. I have to admit, I remember thinking the previous films were good but I can’t really remember that much about them. I don’t think the hype is justified, the idea is good, I just don’t think it has been stretched to its full potential. There were a couple of things that really bothered me though, more so than the previous films. Firstly, the script is horrible. I stand by my words that a stunt person can be a good film maker but this script could only have been written by a stunt performer. The script is full of one-liners, really bad ones that felt half written but all stolen. There are far too many nods to other action films, so many in fact that the whole film started to feel like an homage, rather than a piece of original film. I also hated a lot of the visuals. I found that the slick appearance of the first two films had slipped, so while there are some very stylish scenes to be had, there are also ones that are over baked. The switchboard scenes are particularly jarring, with women of various different ages all adorned in the same clothes, same hair styles and same cheap looking tattoos. It kind of ruined the genuinely stylish scenes, the ones featuring Anjelica Huston’s Director for example. It has been described as a neo-noir action thriller but I’m not sure I’d agree with that description as it takes a lot more than a lack of sunlight for a film to be noir. I didn’t hate the film, it’s popcorn escapism, but it really isn’t a masterpiece and the series as a whole isn’t really deserved of the praise it is receiving in my most humble of opinion. I like Keanu Reeves and would happily watch him stand still for 90 minutes in complete silence, so I will watch John Wick: Chapter 4 even though I have zero enthusiasm for it, I just hope the end the series with a bang and up the game drastically.