Movie Review: John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum (2019)

About a half hour into this movie, I was pretty convinced that this movie was just about the best action movie I’ve ever seen. The opening act in Manhattan, starting with Boban in the New York Public Library, is so incredibly thrilling and well choreographed that it’s impossible not to be glued to the screen.

And I liked that this movie — while remaining brutal — wasn’t afraid to get a little silly, like with the horse and all that shit. It’s self aware.

But there was a giant reservation on all of this, and not just that I was less than a quarter of the way into the movie. But Halle Berry was yet to show up.

Now I hate Halle Berry. I think she’s just about the worst high profile actor out there, at least next to Kevin Costner. But she does a fine job here, and it appears my reservation was rather unfounded. She’s not as good in the action scene as Keanu Reeves is, of course, but that’s to be expected.

It’s still a fantastic scene.

With the last act of the movie taking place almost entirely in the Continental Hotel in Manhattan, we once again have some fantastic action, but it takes us a while. First, there’s a bit of humor with John having a bit of a conversation with Zero (Mark Dacascos), the man trying to kill him the entire movie, in a funny scene where Zero declares himself a fan.

Cacascos was a real joy to watch the entire movie. He excels obviously in the action scenes, but he does a nice job even in this lighthearted moment, and I like the relationship some of these assassins have with John. They need to kill him, but they respect the hell out of him, and consider it an honor even to die by his hand.

But the first real action scene in the hotel starts kind of unremarkably. Before John gets the armor-piercing shells, the action just seems to be lacking the energy it had had the rest of the movie — even if it is really goregeously shot.

And then the movie really comes alive at the end. I mean, there is more broken glass in this movie than probably any movie I’ve ever seen. It’s just fantastic stuff, and again, the movie has a bit of a sense of humor about itself, and its excesses.

All in all, it’s an incredibly enjoyable experience. I can’t say I got much out of the plot, but I don’t think I was really meant to. These John Wick movies are about as stripped-down and devoid of filler as action movies get. And this is the best one.

Rating: 9/10