John Wick Chapter 3 is John Wick Chapter 2, lather, rinse, repeat . . . When I think of John Wick I think, how many bullets does it take to kill a henchman? Just one, but let’s shoot 50 just to be sure! Don’t get me wrong, I love Keanu, have from the start, but I’m thinking that this is just a movie about shooting and fighting and how much energy he must have to keep going after getting punched, kicked, punched again, kicked again, hit by a car, falling off a building and did I say getting punched and stabbed and shot?
There is a bit of a story here, the classic story about how you were one of us but now you are incommunicado and now we (all of those folks who were your coworkers and friends) are now going to try to kill you for money. We all know that you are an expert at what you do and unkillable but we are going to try anyway. I have this knife that is very sharp, wait . . . no that didn’t work . . . ok, how about this gun that shoots special bullets . . . no wait, that didn’t work either . . . you get my point. There was a lot of shooting, improbable seconds where he had to reload and no one took advantage to get the drop, then more shooting and more fighting . . . . He spends the majority going from one situation to another trying to escape, it gets a little m boring and you find yourself waiting for something else to happen.
The desert scene had promise but I wasn’t convinced — he never once took off his coat while walking in the heat? It just didn’t seem reasonable, the situations were improbable and not believable but you watched it because it’s John Wick and it’s Keanu. Halle Barry is kick-ass, and still beautiful with scars on her face, with killer dogs that obey her command and stay put in all the fighting and are always near to administer that vicious bite rendering yet another henchman incapacitated. Oh well, I guess it doesn’t pay to be the bad guys.
I loved Angelica Houston, for a minute I didn’t know it was her, but she was great as the “gatekeeper” and ballet teacher, holding the world’s toughest audition, down to the torn leotards! All the players, Ian McShane and Laurence Fishburne has great turns as the old guard doing what they had to do to survive. Seven cuts is a lot to take. My favorite is the Adjudicator – how do you get a job like that?
This movie was slick and fast paced, loud and violent, about 1,000 bullets in the first 30 minutes (I stopped counting) but like I said, you watch because it’s Keanu and you love John Wick. Let’s hope the next one is more interesting, although we’ll probably be at that one too. Watch with a big tub of popcorn and a drink, you won’t mind having a bathroom break. When you come back, they will still be shooting!