The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Death becomes him
Reeves continues to impress in third ‘John Wick,’ but action franchise beginning to lose some blood
Early last week, I received an email from a coworker with the subject “John Wick 3 review.” ¶ I was intrigued, largely because “John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum” hadn’t come out yet and that, as far as I could remember, we’d never talked about the blood-soaked action franchise built around actor Keanu Reeves that began in 2014 with “John Wick.” ¶ “Just watched the first two (movies) to see if the new one coming out would be interesting,” his email begins. “I’ve taken the liberty of writing the review for you, based on what is likely to happen. ¶ “Two-hour gun battle. Lots of blood. There’s a dog. The end.” Hey, unfair. That was my reaction, because the highly stylized “John Wick” and its 2017 sequel, “John Wick: Chapter 2,” have been at least borderline-masterful in the action department. In leaving a trail of bodies that probably could stretch from sea to shining sea at this point, Reeves’ titular assassin-turned-avenging-angel-of-death — boy, never murder a man’s dog — has killed with real gusto. Reeves is largely responsible for these movies being as entertaining as they are, the actor turning in martial arts-heavy performances that are as impressive as they no doubt are physically demanding. And then there’s the series’ director, Chad Stahelski, who served as a stunt double for Reeves in the highly influential 1999 sci-fi action juggernaut “The Matrix” and went on to focus on fight choreography and stunt coordination. When you scrape away their flimsy continuing story, that’s ultimately what these movies are: exquisitely choreographed fights and cool stunts, with intermittent exchanges of bad dialogue between them to allow viewers to catch their collective breath.
That’s certainly what “Chapter 3” is, but I found it a more numbing experience than the other two, the movie never fully recapturing my interest after its tremendously entertaining, insanely violent opening stretch. “Parabellum” begins immediately following the events of “Chapter 2,” with John and his pooch running the streets of New York City in a downpour. Given a brief head start by Winston (Ian McShane of “Deadwood” and “American Gods”), manager of the assassin-friendly Continental Hotel, John faces excommunication for committing an act of violence on hotel property. His death will bring his killer a $14 million payday, which has seemingly half the world gunning for him. (One particularly tall assassin attacks John in a library before that window of time officially has opened, and let’s just say John does more than throw the book at him.) To try to stay alive, John seeks to flee to Casablanca, meeting with a woman (Anjelica Huston) with whom he has deep ties to make that happen. Once in Morocco, he sees another woman from his past, Sofia (Halle Berry), who shoots him before deciding to help him. (Women, am I right?) To live for any meaningful length of time, John must make amends with The High Table, a secretive and incredibly powerful global association of crime organizations that enforces the assassins’ code. Back in New York, The High Table has dispatched an Adjudicator (Asia Kate Dillon of “Billions”) to deal with Winston and the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne of “The Matrix”) for helping John, giving each man a period of seven days to get his affairs in order before punishments are meted out. Relatedly, if John is to wipe away his debts to The High Table, he’ll have to make a choice that pains him more than all the physical wounds he has suffered up to that point. Setting aside his stiff-asever line deliveries, Reeves is simply amazing in this film. Again, he is especially captivating in its first stretch, in which, among other occurrences, he dusts two men on motorcycles while he is on horseback. He also engages in what is, essentially, a knifethrowing fight in what is, essentially, a hall of knives. It’s just fantastic. Other sequences are less so. Sure, there is some gruesome fun to be had when John, Sofia and her dogs take on Berrada (Jerome Flynn of “Game of Thrones”), an Italian member of The High Table, and his minions. However, this elaborately staged affair illustrates the fighting skills Reeves possesses compared to Berry (“Kingsman: The Golden Circle”), whose character is largely relegated to shooting guys in their faces. There are laughs to be had, of course, many coming in the final stretch of the film as Winston waits in a heavily fortified and elegant room, sipping wine as violence erupts not far from him. Also, Mark Dacascos, a martial artist and TV personality (“Hawaii 5-0,” “Iron Chef America”) earns some laughs as an assassin desperate to kill John but who also is a pretty big fanboy of his target. Too often, though, “Parabellum” feels as though it could be called “Monotonum,” as it’s mostly a steady stream of cartoonish deaths. The film is credited to four scribes, but the real writers are Stahelski and anyone else responsible for choreographing the fights and coordinating the stunts. There isn’t much in the way of actual writing here. A two-hour gun battle with lots of blood and a dog? Well, it’s a little more than two hours, there seemingly are as many knives as guns, not all that much blood considering all the death and more than one dog. But, yeah, pretty fair.