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In the first movie, a gang of thugs broke into the house of John Wick, a retired master hitman, and killed his puppy. In retaliation, he came out of retirement and killed both them and also every single other fucking person that they've ever associated with. I suppose that first movie was the anti-animal cruelty advert that the RSPCA just doesn't have the balls to make itself. In the second movie Wick was forced into killing again but this time it was against his will. It turns out that these films take place in a world in which there are so many hitmen operating that not knowing that they all exist is like being a teenager that still believes in Father Christmas. You're being stupid and everybody around you thinks you're fucking thick. By the end of that film, Wick decided to murder his blackmailer in the special hitman hotel The Continental which we're told has a zero tolerance rule when it comes to murder. Throughout the trilogy, these hotels are treated as safe havens for all of the different assassins as though there's something special about them. But now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure that all hotels have a zero tolerance rule when it comes to murder, don't they? Or have I unknowingly been risking my life every time I've stayed in a fucking Travelodge and nobody has ever bothered to warn me?! Either way, this third movie begins with Wick now on the run and every hitman in the world after him due to his complete lack of hotel etiquette.
What follows here is pretty much the greatest fucking action sequence that you'll have ever seen in a movie and I will flat out fight anybody that tells me I'm wrong. As far as I can gather, each of these films has pretty much begun on the same day that the last one ended meaning that everything we've seen happen to Wick so far has happened within the space of about a week. As the franchise has moved forward though, the whole thing has escalated so much that I began to wonder something. The first movie was obviously very stylish with the lighting being predominantly pretty blueish but this latest entry is a neon rainbow of colour as though the filmmakers got pissed in a paint factory before deciding to move on and down some fucking lava lamps. The action too has increased significantly in scope from the coolest fist fights and shoot-outs of the first movie to the horse chases, sword fights, and previously mentioned attack dogs in this one. Wick takes a hell of a beating too, whether it's the knives to the shoulder, sword slices to his limbs, bullets to his torso, or simply punches to his fucking face. Occasionally he'll see a doctor and in each case, that doctor will stitch him up and then give him a shit tonne of pills to chew on as though he's snacking on fucking Haribo. But it's all only been a few days don't forget. In which case you now have to surely question quite how much of what we're seeing is even close to the actual reality of his world? Because everything is so brilliantly exaggerated here that surely there's at least the distinct possibility that Wick is just off his absolute tits on happy pills and painkillers by now.
Either way though, I think it should be obvious at this point that I literally loved this movie with every atom of my cold, dead heart. I was asked the other day by somebody who'd never seen these films why I bang on about them so much, to which I obviously responded by cutting them out of my life forever. If they haven't seen these movies yet then they're clearly a moron and not worth my time. However, beyond the incredible action, I think the brilliance of them is in the way that they've slowly built up this incredible hitman mythology and then placed the zen-like cool of Keanu Reeves at the centre of them. If there's anything that I love as much as I love dogs then it's probably Keanu Reeves and so a franchise in which he acts as their violent protector is pretty much what I'd have forced the Make A Wish Foundation to make if ever I'd gotten ill and they'd approached me. These films are so ridiculous and yet somehow they manage to balance the impossible of being both knowingly funny but also cool enough that you still take them completely seriously! Plus the level of spectacle that they do manage is so insanely creative that you can't help but be in awe of them. It's one thing to read about the attack dogs that wear bulletproof jackets in the same way that you can also read about the Colosseum in Rome. But you really do have to see it to appreciate it in all of it's incredible, awe-inspiring, glory. The Colosseum is pretty good too I guess. By being the third instalment the filmmakers have been able to look at the first two movies and really hone in on what made them so great to ensure that this is their magnum fucking opus. There's a bit in The Simpsons in which the family go to see a musical stage adaptation of Planet Of The Apes to which Bart sits transfixed and mutters “this play has everything”. By the time that this film brought out its army of Ninjas, I knew exactly how he'd fucking felt.
Sadly this wasn't true of the two old bastards that were sat a few seats along from me at the cinema because those twats insisted on talking the whole way through. At one point John loads a revolver to which the old prick near me stated out loud and to his idiot wife that, “he's going to have six shots”. I mean seriously?? Are you actually counting bullets out loud in a John Wick movie because if you are then this is going to be a long fucking two hours! I tried shushing them a couple of times but ultimately I think they added to my enjoyment of the film as I simply imagined that every goon that John punched, shot, or stabbed slowly through the fucking eye was them. I suspect the kill count in the movie might be the highest for the series so far but almost everybody attacking him seemed to work for somebody unique and interesting with more and more characters being introduced to the world. First, there was Ian McShane as the hotel manager Winston. Ian McShane as a loveable rogue? Who'd have thought! Then there was Lawrence Fishburne's Ghost Dog-esque, pigeon loving, lord of the tramps, The Bowery King. Now however we also have Halle Berry's Sofia as the walking embodiment of everything that Bond, the X-Men, and fucking Catwoman failed to do with her. Oh and there's a bald bloke with a sword called Zero that looks like the Boss Baby and acts like Rupert fucking Pupkin. I'd say that even without the fighting I'd find these people watchable but the brilliance of the film is in how it makes them interesting because of how they fight. In the same way that you can't have a cinema without the occasionally noisy prick that has hopefully since died, it seems that the action here is also inseparable from both story and character.
If I were to have any criticism of this film then I would of course much rather pick up a lamp and hit myself in the head with it like Dobby the fucking House-elf than say it out loud. But I suppose it might be possible to claim that the end of John Wick: Chapter 3 is a little bit sequel baitey. In any other situation, I'd probably bring this up too as I prefer all movies to be completely self-contained regardless of their placement in an ongoing narrative. Except, in this case, I'm simply so happy that all involved are clearly intending to make another instalment that this sequel baiting end left me more excited than a dog in an arse sniffing competition. Could you accuse this film of being gun porn? Well, there are lots of references to the history of action cinema here but perhaps one of the more obvious is when Reeves announces that he needs “guns.. lots of guns”. But for me, the joy of the action is in seeing the fights being so creative and incredibly well choreographed with the film clearly giving no fucks about hiding the brutal reality of what happens when somebody has their head blown off. Perhaps there's a gun porn aspect to it but only in the sense that you could argue that ballet has a shoe porn aspect to it too. It's not that it's not there but you have to be into that in the first place to kind of care about it. In the end though, John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum is everything that you could possibly want it to be and more. Which when you consider how much of a let down almost every aspect of human life has been so fucking far then you simply have to appreciate this for the masterpiece that it is. Thanks for reading, motherfuckers, and see you next time.
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