REVIEW: John Wick Chapter 3 (2019)

Rated R for pervasive strong violence, and some language

What to expect? Something you definitely need to pay the ticket for.

As time goes on, making a great JW movie becomes increasingly difficult, the first was a breath of fresh air and happened at a time Hollyweird totally stopped to make big budget one man army movies, you could only count on Indonesian cinema for that.  The sequel was excellent too, they developed the universe, and the aesthetic whilst continuing to create big body count frenetic action pieces, it almost had a kind of European vampiric vibe to it.

In this new installment, the director and writer (and the stuntmen) are keeping the good work ,you get to know more about JW’s origin, his old friend (Halle Berry and her two combat dogs, they do the fucking job) and more about the universe and the rules, but not too much, just enough to keep the story going further. Not pissing in the soup like Ridley Scott.

The movie starts one hour after the prequel ends, so you get under pressure immediately, just a few minutes before anyone can try to get the 14 million bucks bounty. The settings are superb, the action scenes are great for several reasons, the creativity to avoid the  sensation of blandness,a high body count action sequence can ends up being dull if there are no variations. Of course no shaky cam here,but blood seems to be CGI, given the fast pacing and the visuals, there is not much harm.And some cool ideas like the pool sequence.And the score composers remain the same since the original.

Special forces, Cars, bikers waving katanas (à la Black Rain).  Even horses, because Chad Stahelski stated himself that he has the good  taste to love Leone’s westerns.  The most skilled antagonist played
by Dacascos, is a fun character, basically a fan of JW and a cat person, he adds a touch of humour to the movie, there are a few jokes here and there and they all work, like that combat scene involving JW against Yayan Ruhian and his pal, you’re gonna like it and the funny tone of it.But make no mistake, it’s brutal.

Still, as a purist the best of the three is still the original For me, I think expanding the universe is risky and each new episode can be the one in excess. We’ll see about that.

Two years to go before part 4.

-Frenchie