Wick of Arabia
John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019): 7 out of 10 Let’s start with the first problem: the title. John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. What’s with the Parabellum thing? It feels oddly pretentious for a movie series that began with one of the simplest plots in modern action cinema. Just call it John Wick 3. We all know what the number means.
Still, before I get to the frustrations, let’s get the good stuff out of the way first, because there is a lot of good stuff here.
Plot Synopsis
Picking up immediately after John Wick: Chapter 2, John Wick has been declared excommunicado by the High Table. A $14 million bounty is placed on his head, and every assassin on the planet suddenly decides payday has arrived.
John fights his way across New York and eventually beyond, seeking help from various allies within the sprawling assassin underworld, all while the High Table sends an Adjudicator to enforce their rules and punish anyone who aided Wick. (John Wick missed a perfect crossover opportunity in having the character be an Arbitrator rather than an Adjudicator thus allowing a Warhammer 40k crossover that would have livened things up a tad.)
What follows is essentially two-plus hours of increasingly elaborate attempts to kill John Wick. Most of which end badly for the people trying.
The Good
The Good: Keanu Reeves is excellent, as always. The supporting cast is also strong. Halle Berry is particularly good, and the returning regulars continue to sell the strange professionalism of this assassin society.
But the real star here is Reeves himself. The amount of stunt training and physical work he clearly put into this film is astonishing.
Some of the action sequences are absolutely incredible. We’re talking about seven-or eight-minute sequences that could practically function as standalone short films. The early knife fight is probably the best knife fight I’ve ever seen on film. Brutal, inventive, and perfectly choreographed.
Other highlights include:
- A surprisingly fun horse chase
- Consistently excellent gunplay
- Elaborate stunt choreography throughout
What really separates John Wick from other modern action movies is the camerawork.
Unlike, say, the Bourne films, which rely heavily on quick cuts and shaky camera tricks, the John Wick movies keep the camera steady and let the action play out. You actually see what’s happening. It’s old-school action filmmaking done at an elite level.
The Bad
The problem is that everything between those great action scenes becomes a slog.
At 130 minutes, John Wick: Chapter 3 is simply too long.
Too long for a John Wick film.
Too long for an action movie.
Too long, period.
I had seen the movie twice, and while writing this review, I considered watching it a third time. Then I realized something: I didn’t want to. I’d happily fast-forward to the action scenes again, but watching the entire movie from beginning to end feels like homework.
And the reason is the film’s obsession with expanding the John Wick universe.
The Matrix Problem
This movie reminds me a lot of the Matrix sequels.
The original John Wick worked because it was simple and self-contained.
Sad man adopts a puppy.
Bad guys kill puppy and steal his car.
Sad man turns out to be a legendary assassin.
Sad man kills everyone.
We cheer because we like puppies.
That’s the entire story, and it works perfectly.
The original Matrix also told a mostly self-contained story. The plot was more complicated, sure, but the focus stayed on the characters and the action. Neo becomes the One, the good guys fight the machines, and the film never overstays its welcome.
But if you read my reviews of the Matrix sequels, you’ll notice something familiar. In both The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, I praised certain scenes, certain characters, and even certain… forms of cleavage (Monica Bellucci as Persephone almost saves the film) but overall I found those movies exhausting.
Why? Because they stopped focusing on the characters and action and started focusing on lore. At one point in those movies, we literally have an old man in a white room talking for ten minutes, explaining the metaphysics of the Matrix.
John Wick 3 isn’t quite that bad. But it’s heading in that direction.
The Ugly
Because now we’re drowning in John Wick mythology, and much of it feels like it was invented five minutes before filming.
Consider what this movie has:
- A mysterious man in the desert who can grant special favors if you wander through the desert long enough.
- A pigeon-master assassin living in the sewers who communicates with assassins through birds.
- A call center of tattooed operators using old-fashioned phones to update assassination contracts.
- The revelation that apparently everyone on Earth is secretly an assassin.
Homeless people? Assassins.
Taxi drivers? Assassins.
Ballerinas? Assassins.
Fashion models? Probably assassins.
None of this is an exaggeration.
And at some point, you start wondering if the writers are just making it up as they go along, like an eight-year-old telling a story.
“Oh yeah, and then there’s a magic guy in the desert who can grant wishes! But you cannot know where he is, and you are allowed only one water bottle.”
The Stuff I Still Liked
Despite the bloat, there are still a lot of enjoyable moments.
The Japanese assassin running the sushi restaurant is terrific. He is a total John Wick fanboy who can barely contain his excitement when he finally gets to fight his hero.
Halle Berry is strong, though the decision to suddenly give everyone dogs feels a bit cheap after the emotional impact of the first film’s puppy.
The adjudicator is also an interesting character. She is a cold, bureaucratic enforcer of the High Table’s rules. Unfortunately, by the time she gets significant screen time, I’m already worn down by the movie.
Even the ballerina assassin training program with Anjelica Huston is intriguing… but again, it’s just more lore piled on top of an already overstuffed film.
In Conclusion
I’m not saying the filmmakers needed to repeat the first movie and just kill another puppy. This isn’t Star Wars: The Force Awakens, after all.
But there has to be a balance between: A tight action movie and two hours of assassin mythology that no one cares about.
Like the Matrix sequels, John Wick: Chapter 3–Parabellum contains moments of brilliance surrounded by a lot of unnecessary world-building.
The action scenes are phenomenal. But you may find yourself checking your watch while John Wick wanders through the desert looking for mystical guidance from a mysterious man who apparently runs the assassin universe. For me, that was the film’s jump-the-camel moment.
