John Wick (Keanu Reeves)—owner of muscle cars, lover of dogs, enemy of intact craniums—was last seen being cast out of the Wickverse’s convoluted worldwide secret society of assassins at the end of John Wick: Chapter 2. Wick committed an unauthorized murder in hotel-cum-assassin haven The Continental at the end of that chapter, incurring the reluctant ire of proprietor Winston (Ian McShane) and a putting $14 million bounty on his head. John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum picks up straight from there, with a wounded Wick running through the neon-drenched streets of Manhattan, desperate to make it out of the city before an innumerable amount of eclectic hit men and hit women can do him in.
Wick soon meets with the Russian Director (Anjelica Huston) at the ballet school where the budding killer once trained—and apparently nobody has ever heard of sparrows red or widows black—to secure passage out of the country. Taking his byzantine world to Byzantium, he travels to Morocco to demand a favor from old friend Sofia (Halle Berry), amounting to her taking Wick to a dude who tells him where to find another dude who might be able to remove the bounty on his life. Oh, and they both murder the fuck out of a bunch of other dudes along the way. Her dogs bite some dicks off, too.
After directing two of these things already, there’s no reason not to trust old hand Chad Stahelski to deliver. But Wick 3 for the first time teams returning scripter Derek Kolstad with cowriters Shay Hatten, Chris Colllins, and Marc Abrams—which may explain some of the picture’s scattered, talky second-act bloat. (The same act that either wastes or foists a violent Halle Berry character, depending on your feelings about Die Another Day; her penis-hungry dogs are, on the other hand, an irrefutably welcome addition.) Not that this third film’s digressions upend franchise tradition to the point of discomfort (like, say, The Hangover Part III did), but Parabellum works best when it sticks to the reliable Wick formula of urban, vehicular, and close-quarters mayhem. Damned if those fight sequences don’t remain just as awesomely wince-inducing, laugh out loud ridiculous, and inventive as ever—now adding in what has to be the first recorded instance of what Joe Bob Briggs would surely label “Horse Fu.” And that’s beyond the usual Wick mainstays of headshots, fisticuffs, and such a good knife fight, all of it making better use of the environment than the series has seen before.
It’s another John Wick movie, for Christ’s sake, and as such, it dutifully, dependably provides nearly the exact level of clever, rapid-fire fight choreography that makes these things hum. Sure, the antagonists—the powerfully officious Adjudicator (Asia Kate Dillon) and Wick-admiring rival assassin Zero (Mark Dacascos)—aren’t the most memorable, as Wick villains typically aren’t, but these two at least have a quirkier air about them than the series’ perennial mobsters in suits. They’re meant to be little more than bullet catchers anyway, which is why these films’ protracted (and twice now reflective room-based) final boss battles aren’t really as satisfying as the melee of the preceding run and gun levels. Minor quibbles for this weakest of Wick outings that is still pretty darn solid.
John Wick very clearly still works, so there’s no reason for the series to conclude or even divert course anytime soon. The main cast seems more than game (nice to see secret series MVP Lance Reddick’s wonderfully droll Charon getting much more to do this time, but where the heck was Lequizamo?), especially with Reeves and Berry being notably ageless vampires. And surely the Boogeyman himself can come up with more ways to perpetrate homicide. We’ll be here again to witness them in 2021’s John Wick: Chapter 4—Revolver, still struggling to come up with more ways to say “It’s more of the same, but that’s fine!” Because it’s always a pleasure to watch Jonathan inflict so much pain.
Grade: B–
John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum
Director: Chad Stahelski
Studio: Summit Entertainment
Runtime: 131 minutes
Rating: R
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Mark Dacascos, Asia Kate Dillon, Lance Reddick, Anjelica Huston, Ian McShane, Halle Berry
