'John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum' Is Sheer Awesomeness

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, or simply John Wick 3, picks up immediately where Chapter 2 left off.  After being branded an “excommunicado”, John Wick becomes ineligible for the underworld’s services, and a large bounty is put on his head.  After fighting off waves of assassins, he arrives in Casablanca and asks an old acquaintance named Sofia (Halle Berry) to help him set things right.

This movie is more style than substance.  Which is totally fine.  The John Wick movies have always been about being more style than substance.  And the merits of its style more than make up for any deficits in substance.

In other words, whatever narrative flaws it has are made immaterial by the sheer awesomeness of its action.  And as usual, this new installment gratifies immensely with tons of well-shot and well-choreographed fight scenes, and exhilarating, inspired set pieces.

Among the three John Wick movies so far, the first one still has the tautest narrative.   Meanwhile, although it’s deficient in depth and emotional resonance, John Wick 3’s plot is competent enough not to be a distraction – its flaws don’t become significantly detrimental to the film’s overall quality.

Nevertheless, there are flaws.  First of all, I was hoping that the movie would allot all its runtime on John Wick jumping from place to place, and outsmarting, evading, and destroying his unending pursuers.  I believe that it would have been a tighter film if this was the route the script took.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t.  And from the eventual chosen narrative direction stems out many of the film’s flaws.

For example, John Wick made this major decision that, in the first place, I felt was uncharacteristic of how he was fundamentally characterized in the previous two films.  And then, just a few scenes later, he did a 180-turn that negated this completely.  You get to understand why he changed his mind at that point, yes, but it still made the initial major decision come across as pointless because the interval between the two events was too short.  The execution felt sloppy, and it just somewhat reeked of bad writing.

But, again, let me emphatically reiterate: these story flaws don’t matter in the big picture.  For the fact stands that John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum is an amazing film, primarily because of its extremely likable lead; spectacular, intense action; and imaginative worldbuilding.

Miscellaneous musings:

• It’s officially announced that Chapter 4 is slated for a 2021 release.  Can’t wait!
• This franchise is somewhat very on-the-nose when it comes to making Matrix references.  And thus, I have a strong feeling that Carrie-Anne Moss and Hugo Weaving are going to have roles in future movies.
• Halle Berry is fantastic in this film, which is nice.  It has been a long time since I last saw her have a noteworthy role in a noteworthy film.  Her character, Sofia, is pretty memorable.  Surely, we’ll see her again in future installments.  Also, if they ever decide to make a spin-off movie for her, I’m down with it.
• I was so thrilled to see Yahan Ruhian and Cecep Arif Rahman, known for their roles in The Raid movies, in this movie.  They were great!  And they may possibly show up in the next one as well (meaning, they didn’t die in Chapter 3).  I hope other notable Indonesian martial artists/actors like Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim, and Julie Estelle can get roles in the next John Wick movies, too.
• I knew going in that NBA center/fan favorite Boban Marjanovic had a cameo in this movie, but it turned out being more fun than expected.
• In my screening for John Wick 3, a trailer for Anna was played prior it.  It was my first time to see that trailer, and I was kind of blown away.  It looks like Anna’s going to be the female John Wick movie that Atomic Blonde wasn’t.  I’m definitely gonna see it.