John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum

I was extremely looking forward to the third installment, so the disappointment hit hard. I'm giving three stars more or less out of nostalgia for the previous two films. I often criticize films for being slow-paced and lacking in action. This film was neither, yet I was far from satisfied. The pace was frantic, there was loads of action, but the creators somehow forgot to add a good story. After a while, the action scenes started to get boring, the choreography in them was poor. I'm glad I didn't start counting shattered glass displays, because I was never good at advanced math. Asia Kate Dillon managed to keep a perfect poker face all along. In her defense, I’ve never seen her use any other expression. 3*- (01/06/2020)

A polished diamond. Sure, it's a filmmaking exhibition by genre fans, but it reaches its peak in this third film. In those aesthetically refined backdrops (neon and rain always work), a festival of creative imagination takes place, which refuses to ease up and sprinkles one highlight after another from its sleeve. The uncompromisingly long, clear, and unrelentingly physical action scenes are in many ways borderline trance-like, and it doesn't matter if there’s shooting, flipping through a book, or ordering dogs around. The story is a phantasmagoria, and every other line is a declamation, but it springs from it quite a few ironic dialogues and comedy performances. It can't be pushed any further. And if it can, then let’s have a Reeves vs. Iko Uwais matchup in the fourth film, please. (08/31/2019)

The best two scenes open the third instalment of the John Wick series and are rather actually the ending of the second one. Then a new, slightly different movie begins. The outlined movie universe is developed and we encounter its power brokers. The journey to them, however, does not reach the dramatic epic nature or visual magnificence of Rome from the second part, with its disco, catacombs and the Camorra boss. And the stylish elegance of the previous sequel with its 100% focus on Wick turns into an unpredictable bit of surrealism with apparent errors of logic and multiple characters who influence Wick’s destiny in a manner other than with a lethal handgun. However, it is still a very enjoyable representative of the series within its genre. (07/05/2019)

So I’m wondering if this action series isn't the best I've ever seen... and it probably is. John Wick is still hugely entertaining, honest, and a notch up again in terms of story and surreal carnage. Imagine if Bud Spencer and Terrence Hill's comedies had blood spurting by the gallon and their classic two-against-a-hundred slaps had ended in a pile of corpses... Or imagine Buster Keaton's slapstick, which, like the last episode, also makes a cameo appearance. That's exactly what most of the action in John Wick 3 looks like – endless ideas, choreographed to the last detail, and a pitch-black humor that's impossible not to succumb to. At the same time, I must add that the film is once again not all action, and that without interesting, well-acted characters and lots of twists, it would hardly be half as good. (05/15/2019)

The third outing of John Wick carries on with the legacy of the second one, using thoroughbred action to move forward a simple story and to reveal corners of that world which had previously remained hidden. It significantly reinforces the serial nature and the mutually supporting narratives across the franchise and its structure and, at least after a first screening, feels considerably more loose and episodic than the previous entries, which is mainly thanks to the work with the old-new characters and the action scenes. What is missing this time is the presence of a dominant villain, like in the two previous episodes, that could direct Wick’s motivations and would give form to the obstacles throughout the film. Parabellum is no longer a story about vengeance and its consequences, it’s about the culmination of an uprising against a powerful system, where the cards can be unexpectedly turned and the tension is provided by the constant confrontation of characters and not by a smooth journey towards a final clash. Most of the secondary characters appear for a few minutes to help John, both to take another step forward in his rebellion (and to explain it psychologically) and to increase a little more the knowledge of the audience about the scope and practices of that world. Wedged into all that are the action scenes, which are plenty, and they are all either preceded or followed by another shift in the plot. And while some of them are truly magnificent, with unexpected settings and cool killing tools (if you’re someone who doesn’t respect horses yet, that will change), others feel a bit tiring with their repetition of similar gimmicks. But I still have to tip my hat in appreciation at Stahelski, the stuntmen and Reeves, because almost every single action sequence, despite the fluctuating wow factor, is a showcase of the most honest school of stunt work and staging, next to which The Expendables should hide in a corner and pray John Wick won't find them. However, as effective as the film is in its dynamic sequences, the quiet interludes don’t have much glittering potential. Whereas the second one had mortar in the shape the main villain, here I missed a similar driving force, especially in the middle, when seeing armed goons jumping on poor John from every corner started to get a bit boring. The ending, fortunately, corrects the inconsistencies and prepares a very fertile ground for the shootout and fistfight of the century, which cleverly underscores the core concept of personal rebellion and further reinforces the driving idea of "John Wick vs The World". It’s not as elegant and smooth as the second one and the pace grinds at times, but that final scene manages to surprise and put most of the doubts away in a box labelled minor details. 85% (05/18/2019)