directed by Chad Stahelski
written by Shay Hatten and Michael Finch
The action saga that kicked off in 2014 when a retired hitman avenged his the killing of his dog and the theft of his car by murdering an entire Russian crime family has returned with easily its biggest installment yet.
John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is still on the run, having been marked for death by the High Table of assassins over two films ago, but this time he's decided to take the fight to the High Table with the intent of killing them all, with the help of his allies, the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne), Winston (Ian McShane) the manager of the New York Continental Hotel, and Charon (the late Lance Reddick), the concierge of the Continental. The High Table isn't messing around, though; they've tasked a powerful new player, the Marquis Vincent de Gramont (Bill Skarsgaard) to oversee Wick's elimination. Gramont is a canny player, and to get the job done he Caine (Donnie Yen), an old ally of Wick who also happens to owe the High Table big. Of course, he also summons a huge army of lethal killers with guns and body armor to the do job, too. No place is safe now, not even the Continental hotel in Japan which is run by Wick's old friend Koji (Hiroyuki Sanada) and his daughter Akira (Rina Sawayama). Another wildcard in the mix it the mysterious, nameless tracker (Shamier Anderson) a freelance bounty hunter who seeks to drive the bounty for Wick up as high as it can go before killing him. In short, it all appears to be coming to a head.
Full disclosure: I didn't like John Wick 3: Parabellum, because in my opinion the fight sequences got repetitive after a while. There was every danger of that happening here, especially given the film's nearly three-hour running time, but I persisted because I have followed this franchise pretty faithfully since I saw the first one on DVD years ago.
I'm happy to report however, that with the exception of the film's first big battle in the Japanese branch of the hotel Continental, which featured a lot of the jiu-jitsu-and-headshot choreography that had been a staple of the first three films, this film really takes its fight sequences to a whole new level, managing to devote generous screen time to every single one of the high=profile action stars it has added to the John Wick family, whether it's Donnie Yen, Hiroyuki Sanada or Scott Adkins who puts on a fat suit, and gold-plated dentures to play German hitman Killa. Yen features most prominently here and nearly steals the show from Reeves with his killer moves and quippy humor, but make no mistake, this is still John Wick's movie, and Reeves is absolutely firing on all cylinders here to bring us the most extreme stunts we could possibly get without Jackie Chan or Tom Cruise showing up. Heck, I'd say Reeves is on par with them after this film.
Director Chad Stahelski seriously switches things up here, and not just in terms of fight choreography and blocking. The guy has an extraordinary eye for beauty, which he effectively juxtaposes against the extreme violence, and with the story taking John and his pursuers all over the world, from Morocco to Japan to Germany and finally to France, he has ample opportunity to give the audience some real money shots, and boy, oh boy does he deliver. This bodes extremely well for the adaptation of the wildly popular video game Ghost of Tsushima that Stahelski is currently slated to direct.
Do I have any problems with this movie? Well, as I said, it is rather long, though the time taken to set up the action is pretty well-spent. I had issues with the first major battle sequence, but just about everything after that played out excellently.
At at a time when it's hard to find movies that feel fresh and exciting in view of the endless onslaught of franchises, it's refreshing that at least one of them manages to get it right.
8.5/10
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