REVIEW: John Wick Chapter 3 - Parabellum

Parabellum is the first John Wick in the franchise to earn the chapter part of its subtitle. Much like your standard novel or a Netflix original it wastes no time on what was set up in the last film. But even if someone didn’t know a gosh darn thing about John Wick before watching this 3rd installment, I believe they’d still enjoy this film. Just check out this 2 sentence synopsis.

John Wick is one of the world’s best assassins who has been blacklisted by almost every competent killer on earth. Now he must beat the odds and fight his way to a peaceful life.

Yeah...ya got me.

All that said, audiences would certainly benefit from seeing John Wick 1 and 2 before this film because Parabellum perfectly builds into the world established in the previous installments. You would never guess that chapter 2 and 3 were even shot at different times, much less handled by completely different writers and producers. New elements just feel right. The modern-day ninjas are a natural extension of the killers we’ve seen, the Adjudicator makes sense and opens the door to so many great conflicts, and John gets deeper and deeper as a character. Plus, all my favorite aspects were maintained: the fight scenes are just as creative, the criminal underworld feels just as fresh, and the cast doesn’t skip a beat. Oh, and if I’m mentioning the cast, I gotta start a new paragraph.

Y’ALL! THIS CAST!

From the biggest big name to the smallest bit role the acting in John Wick 3 is on another level. Halle Barry appears with her best performance in who knows how long, Anjelica Huston was the smartest casting choice of the summer so far, and even the dude from Iron Chef America is good in this movie. The Bowery King is perhaps my favorite character in action movie history and I want to see Laurence Fishburne play him until the end of linear time. Fan. For. Life.

The score, the locations, the cinematography, the pacing, the CGI, the costuming, the dialogue with just enough corny on top of the hyper realism, YUM YUM, I LOVE IT ALL! And I’m sure I’m skipping over tons of symbolism because I’ve only seen it once.

They say lightning never strikes twice but it just struck 3 three times and I’d be willing to bet the storm still rages.

5/5

P.S. If you want to hear me talk more about this franchise I made a whole 18 minute long video on the first 2 movies HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZvmBmCSHhQ

It’s not the best thing I’ve ever created, but I’m glad I made it. :)

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