05-28-2019, 11:01 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-28-2019, 11:05 AM by TM2YC. Edited 1 time in total.)
Very mild spoilers ahead...
John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (2019)
Chapter 3 ramps up the precisely choreographed 'The Raid 2' style action even further than the previous two installments. Yayan Ruhian and Cecep Arif Rahman from 'The Raid 2' have superb cameos, basically reprising their characters to have a franchise vs franchise grudge-match. JW3 takes the violence to new, knowingly-extreme levels, which the audience I watched with gleefully appreciated, laughing along at every OTT kill. I can't believe this got away with a 15-Cert in the UK. There must be more shots of evil henchmen having their nuts savaged by angry dogs in JW3, than in the whole history of cinema combined. That dog sequence, the military-museum fight, the horse scene and the shotgun assault are all unforgettable set-pieces.
However, when things occasionally slow down you get bombarded with voluminous nonsense about the increasingly preposterous world of John Wick, when you just want to get to the next fight. JW1 felt like it portrayed a secret criminal subculture, in the real world, where as JW3 takes place in a fantasy land where everybody is a super assassin. It's starting feel like 'Pirates of the Caribbean' in that regard but with PotC, the endgame is nonsense, where as here, it's at least in service of giving Wick endless excuses for brilliant action to take place. Mark Dacascos steals the show as an assassin who is hilariously a giddy fanboy of Wick's work. This might be the best of three films so far, even if it lacks the characterisation of the first film and I'm looking forward to the next Chapter.
John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (2019)
Chapter 3 ramps up the precisely choreographed 'The Raid 2' style action even further than the previous two installments. Yayan Ruhian and Cecep Arif Rahman from 'The Raid 2' have superb cameos, basically reprising their characters to have a franchise vs franchise grudge-match. JW3 takes the violence to new, knowingly-extreme levels, which the audience I watched with gleefully appreciated, laughing along at every OTT kill. I can't believe this got away with a 15-Cert in the UK. There must be more shots of evil henchmen having their nuts savaged by angry dogs in JW3, than in the whole history of cinema combined. That dog sequence, the military-museum fight, the horse scene and the shotgun assault are all unforgettable set-pieces.
However, when things occasionally slow down you get bombarded with voluminous nonsense about the increasingly preposterous world of John Wick, when you just want to get to the next fight. JW1 felt like it portrayed a secret criminal subculture, in the real world, where as JW3 takes place in a fantasy land where everybody is a super assassin. It's starting feel like 'Pirates of the Caribbean' in that regard but with PotC, the endgame is nonsense, where as here, it's at least in service of giving Wick endless excuses for brilliant action to take place. Mark Dacascos steals the show as an assassin who is hilariously a giddy fanboy of Wick's work. This might be the best of three films so far, even if it lacks the characterisation of the first film and I'm looking forward to the next Chapter.