John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum Review: Beautifully Crafted Carnage

'John Wick: Chapter 3'

LIONSGATE

5/5 Stars

After gunning down a member of the High Table -- the shadowy international assassin's guild -- legendary hit man John Wick finds himself stripped of the organization's protective services. Now stuck with a $14 million bounty on his head, Wick must fight his way through the streets of New York as he becomes the target of the world's most ruthless killers.

John Wick’s good at killing. He can kill every Tom, Jessica and Harry who comes gunning for him. John would like to play fetch with his new dog without the both of them constantly dodging bullets and ninja stars, but there’s is only one way out, John figures. And that’s to get back in.

But that won’t be easy. Pretty near everyone on John’s contact list is an enemy these days. He’s been declared “excommunicado,” meaning no self-respecting criminal can give the guy the time of day. If John wants to get back into this bad world’s good graces, he’ll need to somehow convince the High Table that he deserves another chance—or go above it’s collective head and speak to someone that even the Table fears.

It won’t be easy, of course. He’ll have to fight hundreds of weapons-brandishing enemies, shed pints blood, stave off utter exhaustion and do his dead-level best to keep his dog safe.

In other words, just another day in the life of John Wick.

There is a cultish element to his job role and once he has been excommunicated he’s going to have to kick some ass to get back in .

The John Wick movies aren’t so much stories as they are ballets of blood. And in this chapter—obviously the third instalment in the John Wick franchise—the fanbase gets exactly what it wants.

The choreography here is often impressive, sometimes breathtaking. The fight scenes are outlandish exercises in murderous fantasy. The casualties, for the most part, are faceless, emotionless thugs—waves of anonymous enemies that wouldn’t be out of place in a particularly violent video game. The film offers plenty of in-the-know nods to its gratuitous excesses. “That was a pretty good fight, huh?” One bad guy asks John, a sword sticking straight through the guy’s chest.

You could even look at these John Wick movies as fairy tales themselves, in a way—a myth of a warrior fighting through the depths of a fearsome underworld, battling demons and monsters along the path to redemption.

But if so, the films also serve as a sober, unintentional condemnation of what we seem to value.

The latest John Wick flick is a celebration of gore in which blood is showered upon the revelers and organs are carved for applause. Whatever gifts of humour or virtue the film offers come wrapped in skin and bound by vein and gristle. And as society puzzles over what to do about its guns, bullies and road rage.