Review of John Wick 3 (2019)- by Chris Stuckmann

Full text transcript of the review of John Wick 3:

John Wick, Chapter three, para bellum once again stars Keanu Reeves as that title character and Halle Berry this time around as well. Ian McShane, tons of amazing actors are in this film. And this is the continuation of what has become Keanu Reeves most consistent franchise. This film picks up just about the last one ended. John is on the run. He is about to be declared incommunicado and every assassin in New York City is going to be after him for a humongous bounty. So we follow John on various adventures throughout the city at night, trying to escape death eventually through other places as well, where he meets Halle Berry’s character and some other stuff happens that I won’t get into. Spoilers. This is a great movie. This is a great action movie. This is yet again another extremely exciting entry in this franchise. If you had told me back in 2002 when they were shooting Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions back to back, that the Matrix trilogy would actually not be the most consistent action trilogy that Keanu Reeves stars. And it would actually be later. This is the most consistent and entertaining franchise in regards to action that Keanu Reeves has ever starred in. And one of the best today. I don’t think it’s quite as good as the Mission Impossible franchise, but in regards to consistency, they are knocking it out of the park. This film has the most action sequences out of the three, possibly the most intense, not quite reaching the heights of the glorious club sequence in the first film, mostly because that sequence was also boosted by a lot of drama with this revenge plot.

But in regards to intensity and consistency, the action is almost wall to wall in this movie. And that does create a danger because you can get oversaturated with action. You can have too much of it to the point where it becomes monotonous. In the case of this film, they do enough with different weapons and different modes of transportation horses, for instance, and they change so much where it does feel like you’re seeing a new type of action throughout every scene. The one thing I’ll complain about in regards to the action is there’s there’s way too many throws. And some of this is more noticeable because the action is filmed almost entirely in wides for very long takes, which is wonderful and makes me very happy. But since they don’t do as much cutting, which again, I love, you can notice there’s a lot of throws and sometimes you can see that there are parts where actors could have gotten a hit in if they wanted to. But you can see they’re sort of waiting for that hit because they’ve choreographed this. But I’m almost OK with noticing those little flaws since I get a lot of really great wide shots instead of having quick cuts all throughout, because obviously that’s just disgusting.

And nobody wants to see that in an action movie. The John Wick franchise has proven time and time again that long takes with real stunts and actors who can do those stunts and a lead star like Reeves’ who’s willing to get down and dirty and get in the dirt and really, really get sweaty and disgusting and bloody and gross with these action scenes. That’s why these movies work so well, because they’re built around these amazing sequences. The story is not as important for these movies. It’s more about setpiece, setpiece, setpiece, and normally that would suck. And I would say that’s a terrible thing that you’re doing with this movie, that you’re more concerned about that than the story. But in the case of the John Wick films, it’s almost what they’re about, similar to the Mission Impossible franchise. It’s about making your jaw drop every five to ten minutes and making you sort of want to giggle with excitement every time this insanely violent and gory thing happens in front of you. Big surprise for me in this movie was Halle Berry. She is just as good as Keanu Reeves in her action scenes. She clearly has been trained immensely, just as Reeves and the other stunt team has. And what they did incorporating dogs in this scene that she’s in. I thought it was amazing. One of my favorite action scenes in the franchise, she really, really did a great job in this movie.

She’s not in the film as much as you might have thought based off the trailers. But she definitely gets a lot of moments that are really fucking bad ass. That just made me extremely excited as an action junkie. And it was also a little bit cathartic, too, because she’s an action star that has had a lot of opportunities and none of them have really worked out that well for her. As Jinx in Die Another Day, she was basically eye candy. She didn’t really get to do that much. And Catwoman, we all know how that turned out. So it was really great to see her in an action role, just blowing it out of the water and doing such a phenomenal job. There is, however, a little downtime in the middle of this film that felt boring while I was watching it. And after a certain choice is made by a John Wick, it feels almost entirely unnecessary. He has to go through this walk through the desert. We’ve seen little hints at this in the trailers, and it leads to a tough choice that he has to make. And it feels like he has a newfound resolve. Not some 10 to 15 minutes later, he reverts back on this choice and it makes you feel like you don’t quite a. Understand the motivation for John Wick in this movie. In fact, for a large portion of the movie, it’s a little unclear what his motivation is.

Once you learn what his motivation is in that desert sequence, again, I’m not spoiling anything. You’re like, OK, I see what you’re trying to do. But then after, like, one conversation, he turns his back to that motivation. And I’m totally OK with that choice. It makes for the better and more entertaining third act for sure. It’s just that there wasn’t enough time allotted to that development to make it realistic that he would suddenly turn his back on this really intense decision he makes and all of this life threatening stuff he goes through to make said decision and then like ten minutes later being like, fuck it, never mind. And my last issue with the movie is sort of a holdover from the last film. This is a spoiler for the ending of John Wick, too. So if you haven’t seen John work, too, that’s your warning. At the end of that film, you find out that there are assassins throughout all of New York and these killers are just everywhere. And it kind of strain credibility when he’s running away. And you see, like all these people noticing him and all of the people who stopped walking in the park, too. And so when it came to this film, there were a lot of sequences where were folks are killed in public and you’re expecting screams and people fleeing and you don’t see that.

And I’m like, all right, I can’t buy that. Everyone in this room is an assassin. I just don’t buy that. And so still, that was a holdover from the last film where I just didn’t buy that there were that many people in New York under control of this organization. It’s a more entertaining and more fast paced film than the second film, which I liked. But still, I would say the first film has the most dramatic heft, has the most investing story. The third film at Times Storywise, does show some signs of wear, but the incredible action sequences and the stunt team and Keanu Reeves and Halle Berry and all these actors who are just giving their all to these sequences, you have to hand it off to them. This is such a great action achievement and it makes someone like me extremely excited about what else could possibly come in this franchise if they decide to make more. I’m going to give John Chapter three, A, B plus. So, guys, let me know. He thought of John Wick three when you get a chance to see it. I also want to give a big thank you to the sponsor for this video, and that is Skillshare. Skillshare is an amazing online community filled with classes, video tutorials, things on design, business editing, cinematography, drawing, art. They have over twenty five thousand classes available online to learn in just about anything that you have an interest in.

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