Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Film Review - John Wick Chapter 3 (2019)

John Wick Chapter 3 takes place after John Wick Chapter 2 and sees Mr Wick (Keanu Reeves) on the run after the end of Chapter 2 where a $14,000,000 bounty was placed on him and he was branded Ex-Communicado after killing a man on the grounds of the Continental Hotel but Mr Wick isn’t known as Baba Yaga for a reason and he won’t stop until he’s cleared of it.

John Wick Chapter 3 is an improvement on Chapter 2 but like Chapter 2 is still not as good a movie as Chapter 1 was.

Firstly the action scenes in this movie are breathtaking, the opening one in the library had me grinning and clapping in my seat not to mention there’s one with a horse, with 2 vicious dogs, a small arsenal of weapons, swords on motorcycles and shots to the head at point blank range and all of it is done so well that you don’t find yourself bored with any of it at all I certainly was.

And also more like Chapter 1 and less like Chapter 2, this 3rd Chapter had more of a story to it which really continued to hold my interest in the film outside of the action scenes as Wick goes on the run and tries to find what help he can to clear his name and I really liked the pursuit feel of the main story combined with the action scenes.

As for the performances well Keanu once again shows that this role has really brought out the best in him and at age 55 he’s still kicking all kinds of bottom in the stunts and action department (I can’t wait to see him in Bill and Ted 3 next year) while I also enjoyed seeing Halle Berry and Angelica Huston in their small roles while Ian McShane and Lance Reddick continue to do a lot with their small roles and I’ve enjoyed watching the both of them in all 3 films.

And lastly before I get into the negatives this is a gorgeous looking movie with this cinematography and production design, the look of the criminal underworld with its old style theatres, lavish hotels and Ken Adam esque conference rooms is beautiful to look at and the night photography is really nice as well, this will be a great title on 4K later this year.

But no movie is perfect (well the Star Wars Trilogy is in my eyes but that’s just me) and this movie has a bit of a length problem, it’s a little over 2 hours and by the end of the movie I began to feel the length a little bit and both it and Chapter 2 are in that 120-130 minute length and when compared to the 100 minute or so length of Chapter 1 part of me wishes these 2 sequels had had a similar runtime I would’ve put them more easily on par with Chapter 1.

And so that was John Wick Chapter 3 and its an improvement on Chapter 2 but still falls short of Chapter 1 still it’s a really fun action film that junkies of the genre will have great fun at I sure did, 3 and a half out of 5.

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