Super-assassin John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is on the run after killing a member of the international assassin’s guild, and with a $14 million price tag on his head – he is the target of hit men and women everywhere.
Chuck says: The gloriously rendered mayhem continues with this third entry in the series, a film that stays the course where the previous two movies in the franchise are concerned and ends up paying for it in the end. Really nothing more than a series of set pieces, the highlights include a darkly comic, gruesome knife fight between our hero and six assailants and an all too brief scene involving a very large horse and motorcycles careening down the streets of New York City. The film stumbles badly in utilizing a superfluous subplot, a side trip to a fellow assassin, horribly realized by Halle Berry and a final act that lacks imagination and is far too repetitive. Still, the film’s first hour and Reeves’ deadpan delivery of his tough guy dialogue make it worthwhile.
Pam says: In the decade-long career of reviewing films, I cannot recall a more disturbingly grotesque display of violence in a film as I witnessed in “John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum.” Devoid of story and dialogue, the film is an exercise of special effects, precision choreographed combat, and cinematography…these are extraordinary, but these elements are not the foundation of a film. The film must tell a story and this does not. It’s total savage bloodshed, continuous shocking brutal head shots, and grotesquely disturbing and redundant violence and chase scenes. I wanted to leave within the first 15 minutes. This will be on the top of my list for worst films of the decade.
