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)

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)

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)

I wasn't entirely happy with the second film, but the third one made up for it. John Wick is moving forward, not in the sense that he's killing more people (although he might be doing that too), but director Chad Stahelski and Keanu Reeves have figured out an awful lot of unorthodox ways to do the killing on screen. Whereas last time it was mostly shoot-outs, this time around it relies more on contact fights, sharp weapons, and what I'd call a "four-legged arsenal." And it's great! Each action scene is different than the last. There's a shootout, then there's a motorcycle chase, a big vs. small or small vs. much smaller fight, and they manage to squeeze the absolute most out of all the action moments. Within the first half hour, the John Wick 3 does so many things that would last most action movie directors their entire careers. A big plus this time around is the presence of really strong supporting characters, whether they're on Wick's side or at his throat. While Stahelski continues to expand the world and mythology and I continue to feel that it's not entirely necessary, at the same time, it doesn't feel as forced as last time and given the qualitative and indeed quantitative shift in the action, I'm happy to forgive him for that. I'm glad that the people responsible for this franchise clearly haven't run out of ideas yet. (05/15/2019)

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)