Review: John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum

The John Wick franchise has been a total breathe of fresh air for the action genre for the past five years.

With many of the head crew members being known for their stunt work in the past, it kind of makes sense that we should expect high-quality action that is not afraid to push the boundary on its level of violence.
That fine mix of brutality and artistry has not only made the action genre not just some silly over-the-top brainless watch, but it has also made Keane Reeves cool again.

I was pretty excited to see this as not only both of its predecessor were good fun, but we were left on a bit of an intriguing cliffhanger.

I loved that the film got right into the action and already gave us some pretty memorable actions set-pieces that will live long in the memory.
The story moves along nicely, a lot of our favourite characters are still being well developed in their various archs and we're being introduced to new ones that do not fall out of place with the main story.

The action is pretty non-stop. In fact, it is so non-stop that dare I say it does get a bit exhausting. With our main protagonist being so unstoppable, the stakes do get gradually lower as you just know that we won't see them tested or at their lowest. One scene does redeem that flaw to an extent. But enough to totally retract my main negative about the film.

That being said, it still captures the spirit of the John Wick films. The action remains of a high-quality with a lot of imagination in using its surroundings for various sequences. Also, the way it's shot is gorgeous as ever. I love that they just pan the camera out and let the action do the talking as they don't need to go further in and make numerous cuts to makes us believe that they can do these scenes. Reeves is well known for his love of the martial arts and you can tell that him and the rest of the cast are or have been well trained.
I really enjoyed where the story went and how are characters were developed and ended up. I'm definitely up for another one as there are very few action films around that can give us this level of hand-to-hand combat. Plus, it's fairly likely we'll get another one as there was plenty left in the open to follow-up on in a fourth installment.
If I had to rank it, I would say better slightly better than Chapter 2. But the first one is still top of my list.

Rating: 7/10