John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum

Instead of Parabellum the subtitle to John Wick: Chapter 3 should be We May Have Taken This Shit a Little Too Far.  The action scenes are too long, the violence is too gruesome, the universe is too disproportionate and Wick is too indestructible.

To start with some positives the filmmakers put together some badass innovative fight sequences.  The one with Wick battling a group of guys in a room filled with dozens of knives on display and they all break the glass to get at the daggers to throw at each other is inspired.  It’s gotta be my favorite scene in the film.  The library fight right before it and the horse vs motorcycle chase (reminiscent of True Lies) after it are both very well done too.

And having the finale take place in a multi level complex where the walls, floors, ceilings and stairs are all made of clear glass is a stroke of genius.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before.  It’s like the filmmakers thought “what’s the opposite of that maze of mirrors gag we did at the end of Chapter 2?  I got it!  A room where everything’s see through!”  What makes this gimmick work so well is that while you’d think it would be better for your surroundings to be totally clear it turns out to be just as disorienting as trying to tell a real person apart from a reflection.  You never know if someone is standing right in front of you or if there’s a glass wall there.  Boundaries are difficult to determine hindering your sight and movements.  Plus it’s a perfect setup for a lot of folks to get kicked and thrown through all the glass.

However, this end fight along with almost every other fight in the movie are twice as long as they need to be.  I hate to say this but during several scenes I started to get bored.  And that’s a shame because these guys put a ton of effort into all the stunts and choreography.  They got overzealous though by including it all and not making strategic trims.

Within the action the blood and harshness of the violence is amped up from the last installment.  Like you see a knife slowly penetrate a guy’s eye, there’s a shotgun blast to the head (albeit with a full helmet covering the entire head but it’s still rough to witness), people getting stabbed through the top of the head and someone basically gets curb stomped with a book.  Not to mention a shitload of CGI blood splatter and innumerous crotch shots (especially with dogs going for that region).  I don’t know if they really had to get this nasty.  The body count alone is stratospheric so to make a lot of the deaths extra grisly is, well, let’s say unpleasant.

Moving on, I can appreciate the effort to continue to expand the John Wick universe (that part in the first film seems quaint now) but it became so large in this one that I eventually giving up on trying to make sense of it.  Having villains and organizations ever so higher up the command chain is fine but I think overall there are too many people that are part of this assassin realm.  Every single person Wick runs into is involved, even a goddamn cab driver.  I thought this was supposed to be a shadowy underworld that had all these rules not only to maintain order amongst themselves but also to prevent the sugar coated topping normal world from discovering them.  But here they’re killing people in the open in packed Grand Central Station and the New York Public Library for crying out loud.  Either no one cares, no can see this or every individual is an assassin.  With this kinda shit it sorta feels like discreetness it out the fucking window and that in turn makes all the secret handshaking look really silly.

Shit, how's John boy gonna get out of this one?

Lastly, the beating Wick endures here is ridiculous.  Of course there’s a suspension of disbelief with any action hero’s health and pain threshold but they made Wick downright superhuman.  I won’t go into details for spoiler reasons but the filmmakers made this guy durable to the point where I stopped worrying about him.  This also deflated some tension in the fight sequences and part of the reason why my mind would wander a touch after a while.

I know I pointed out a lot of negatives but Chapter 3 really is a decent film and generally speaking the type we need more of.  I mean Keanu is at the top of his fucking game and he still moves great and with this movie he’s done nothing but backup his rep as one of the best action stars of all time.  And it’s excellent that Chad Stahelski and co are making these financially successful and well received modern action pictures that showcase amazing stunt work and let us hang out with cool as shit characters.  I hope he and his team continue to do so.

This piece probably ranks third in the series though with Chapter 2 in the lead (that car chase and hand to hand fight opener has yet to be outdone).  They may have pushed it too far with Chapter 3 in some areas for my tastes.  Maybe scale it back for Chapter 4?  You don’t have to answer right now.  Think it over.