John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum
Parabellum is that rarest of movies – a threquel that continues to improve on what’s come before. The storyline builds the mythology of the John Wick universe even further, while the fight scenes are probably the most creative I have seen in a Hollywood movie. This raises the bar for action movies to a whole new level.
Premise: Picking up immediately from the end of the second film, John Wick (Keanu Reeves) has one hour to escape New York before every assassin in the city attempts to claim the High Table’s $14m bounty on his head. With no support after having been excommunicated by the Continental, John has to call in every personal debt owed to him if he’s going to survive.
Review:
As this is the third chapter in the John Wick series, it’s not interested in explaining itself to new viewers and just jumps straight into the action. (In fact, if you’ve not already seen the first two John Wick films, definitely watch them first – not only are they amazing, but you’ll also struggle to follow what’s going on in Chapter 3 – Parabellum if you don’t).
The central theme of Chapter 3 – Parabellum is consequences, and it applies to all of the returning characters. Not only is John Wick (Keanu Reeves) facing the consequences of having broken the cardinal rule that no business is to be conducted on Continental premises, but Winston (Ian McShane) and the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) also have to face the consequences of their actions from the previous chapter. All of these plot threads help expand the mythology of the John Wick universe even further, as we see more of the complicated relationships between Winston’s New York Continental, the Bowery King’s secret underground organisation, and the all-seeing High Table, represented in this film by the Adjudicator (an impressive Asia Kate Dillon, who easily holds her own against the acting veterans).
“…the things that Keanu Reeves & Halle Berry do in this film put the rest of us to shame…”
As well as the existing factions, we are also introduced to new players, such as the former assassin Sophia (Halle Berry) who, like everyone, has a complicated past with John Wick and who seems just as likely to kill him as help him. I’d be lying if I said I was a huge fan of all of Halle Berry’s previous work, but she’s great in this, striking the perfect balance between the hard-boiled dialogue and the strong vein of black humour that the John Wick films are known for. I’m also really impressed with her commitment to the action scenes, and like Keanu Reeves, she trained for months before filming began so that she could perform her stunts for real. And the things that Keanu Reeves (aged 54) and Halle Berry (aged 52) are able to do in this film put the rest of us to shame.
The film’s other main new addition to the cast is action legend Mark Dacascos as the assassin Zero, sent by the High Table to pursue John Wick. Zero could have so easily been a one-dimensional character, simply introduced to be a credible threat to John Wick, but the film series’ sense of black humour means that Zero is so much more than that, as he’s part super-assassin, and part-fanboy who just seems genuinely excited to have the chance to meet John.
“…there were audible gasps, winces & laughs from the audience as John Wick dispatched assassins in a variety of unexpected ways…”
Just like in the previous films, Chapter 3 – Parabellum has managed to get some great character actors to appear in what are effectively small cameo roles. Hollywood royalty Anjelica Huston appears as the Director, a figure from John’s past and the representative of a new faction in the ever-expanding underworld, while Said Taghmaoui, Jerome Flynn, Jason Mantzoukas and Robin Lord Taylor all appear in small roles too. Lance Reddick also returns as the always unflappable Charon, who gets a bit more to do in this instalment. As an added bonus, Indonesian martial artists Yayan Ruhian and Cecep Arif Rahman from The Raid 2 also appear in one of the film’s many standout fight sequences.
And speaking of the fight scenes, Chapter 3 – Parabellum continues to build the series’ reputation for staging action in a way you’ve never seen before in a mainstream Hollywood film. They say that learning a movie fight scene is like learning a dance – and if that’s true, then Chapter 3 – Parabellum is the Nutcracker performed by the Royal Ballet. The sheer creativity on display is breath-taking – in just the first 20 minutes of the film, there’s two excellent fight scenes as an unarmed John Wick takes on assassins in a library and an antique store, and there were audible gasps, winces and laughs from the audience as John Wick dispatched the assassins in a variety of unexpected ways … and that’s just the opening moments of the film.
“…a modern masterpiece of action cinema…”
Chapter 3 – Parabellum opens up the world of John Wick in a metaphorical sense (as we learn more about the shadowy organisations operating in the secret underworld), but also a literal sense, as the events take John from New York to Morocco, which gives those scenes a very different feel (just as Chapter 2’s excursion to Italy did). But the scope is also expanded, as the film’s name suggests – after all, “si vis pacem, para bellum” is Latin for “if you want peace, prepare for war”.
The John Wick film series is arguably the best “original” film series for a decade. After having come out of nowhere with the original sleeper hit in 2014, the series has continued to grow in confidence and audacity, so that now Chapter 3 – Parabellum is able to build on the excellent work of the first two chapters. The result is a film which is not only a modern masterpiece of action cinema, but which also has a twinkle in its eye and a knowing streak of wry humour, which shows that despite all of the brutality on display, the film has a real sense of escapist fun and isn’t just another joylessly gritty action thriller.
