John Wick Chapter 3 Parabellum * * * *
The reason I don't like fantasy films is that the hero can frequently overcome challenges and setbacks by using magic or some superhuman attribute. Things don't work like that in real life so I don't know how anyone can relate to such characters. In real life when you get hurt, you get hurt. Steel entering the flesh is absolutely excruciating and debilitating. You don't go on. You lay down.
Which makes me wonder why I enjoy the John Wick series.
Magic is not spoken about but you have to ask, how can any man survive such a terrible onslaught on his body unless he has supernatural abilities.
Bullets, stabbings, getting thrown through glass walls, falling from great heights, impacts with cars and he just keeps on going, all the time dressed like someone who has just come from a funeral - black suit, white shirt,(or sometimes black shirt), but always the tie and dress shoes. No casual wear for John Wick, ever.
The first John Wick was a low budget whacky endearing film where he sought revenge on the gangsters that killed his puppy. Fair call too. That was a rotten thing to do, and giving 'em a bullet in the head seemed quite reasonable. That cute little puppy never hurt no one.
Since then things just haven't stopped with a never ending seeking of tit-for-tat in a strange world of gangsters and assassins. Codes of conduct are issued from the basement of an hotel in New York which is also answerable to some higher authority known as "the table". They give you this information but it's scant and funny. All the staff are be-spectacled tattooed girls in tight skirts operating manual type writers and green screen computers. The hotel is run by a heartless but fair man and his concierge. In their own way they have a soft spot for John but "rules is rules".
But the thing we are really here for is the kick-ass action and on that score there aren't many films that deliver quite like John Wick. Keanu Reeves is in his fifties now but apparently he is still doing a lot of the stunts himself, which is remarkable. Ostracised from the hotel there is now a fourteen million dollar bounty on his head, so every low life is having a crack at him. Meanwhile he has to find a way back in to "The Hotel" which requires John to go to Morocco, killing all the way and then back again to rainy New York, once again killing all the way. The body count is beyond count. It's like a video game - kill and kill and kill, but the enemy just keep spawning so John has no choice but to kill and kill and keep on killing, which he does with remarkable efficiency.
It's a ride and a wild one. Not to mention beautifully photographed and choreographed with an ending that makes John Wick 4 almost a certainty.
Which makes me wonder why I enjoy the John Wick series.
Magic is not spoken about but you have to ask, how can any man survive such a terrible onslaught on his body unless he has supernatural abilities.
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| Can John Wick get out of this? .... Probably! |
The first John Wick was a low budget whacky endearing film where he sought revenge on the gangsters that killed his puppy. Fair call too. That was a rotten thing to do, and giving 'em a bullet in the head seemed quite reasonable. That cute little puppy never hurt no one.
Since then things just haven't stopped with a never ending seeking of tit-for-tat in a strange world of gangsters and assassins. Codes of conduct are issued from the basement of an hotel in New York which is also answerable to some higher authority known as "the table". They give you this information but it's scant and funny. All the staff are be-spectacled tattooed girls in tight skirts operating manual type writers and green screen computers. The hotel is run by a heartless but fair man and his concierge. In their own way they have a soft spot for John but "rules is rules".
But the thing we are really here for is the kick-ass action and on that score there aren't many films that deliver quite like John Wick. Keanu Reeves is in his fifties now but apparently he is still doing a lot of the stunts himself, which is remarkable. Ostracised from the hotel there is now a fourteen million dollar bounty on his head, so every low life is having a crack at him. Meanwhile he has to find a way back in to "The Hotel" which requires John to go to Morocco, killing all the way and then back again to rainy New York, once again killing all the way. The body count is beyond count. It's like a video game - kill and kill and kill, but the enemy just keep spawning so John has no choice but to kill and kill and keep on killing, which he does with remarkable efficiency.
It's a ride and a wild one. Not to mention beautifully photographed and choreographed with an ending that makes John Wick 4 almost a certainty.
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