"as gorgeously choreographed, gratuitously violent action movies go, it's high art." We missed you too. Sign up to our newsletter , and follow us on Instagram and Twitter , so you always know where to find us. The world’s campest action-franchise is back for an excessive third chapter, and friends — the critics are loving John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum. Everything you need to know about John Wick is there in the latest movie’s name, and its gratuity of punctuation. Not only a colon, but a hyphen? What is this, the fall of Rome? And what’s a Parabellum? Nobody needs to know — a Parabellum is provocative, nonsensical, powerful. A Parabellum is John Wick. Anyway, we’ve got a long awaited third chapter, where John Wick will undoubtedly semi-reluctantly kill a bunch of folk. When we left him in Chapter 2, he’d managed to piss off the all-powerful assassin’s hotel association, and get a huge contract on his head. Yikes! So, let’s see what the critics are saying about John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum. WE LOVE IT “I don’t mean to give the impression that John Wick 3 is anything grander than a gorgeously choreographed, gratuitously violent action movie,” says Entertainment Weekly. “But as gorgeously choreographed, gratuitously violent action movies go, it’s high art.” John Wick 3 takes a page (and some actors) from The Raid in its relentless action and hard-hitting choreography. There’s some plot wheel spinning that kept it from being perfect, but I just love this world and enjoy spending time in it. — Eric Vespe (@EricVespe) May 11, 2019 The Hollywood Reporter called it “An epic of choreographed mayhem that expands the Wickiverse in mostly pleasing ways, it is destined to satisfy fans of this surprise-hit franchise: If its ludicrous aspects bug you, what the hell are you doing here?” So true. Get the fuck out, naysayers! Manwhile, Film Inquiry summed it all up: “John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum is the best film of the series so far, and proves there is no better action series this decade.” Within the first five minutes of CHAPTER 3, John Wick visits the Rose Main Reading Room of the Fifth Avenue New York Public Library, seven out of four stars, best film of the franchise — Jason Bailey (@jasondashbailey) May 10, 2019 We Think It’s Pretty Great! Screen Junkies think that John Wick is slowing down, which I guess is fair — has he even had a good night’s sleep since his house was blown up? “The action is as spectacular as ever, but I do think that John Wick is showing signs of fatigue, both as a character and as a franchise.” World of Reel agrees: “However visually stimulating it may be, this third chapter in the series barely shakes off the overall sense of deja vu. And yet, if this ‘Wick’ lacks the fresh bite of the second chapter, its barrage of choreographic chaos is noteworthy enough.” The John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum posters have maybe the strongest aesthetic of any poster series I’ve ever seen, and it’s an absolute travesty that we’re not talking about them daily. pic.twitter.com/USmxwUdEIZ — Joe DeSimone (@IHeartFargo) May 4, 2019 I Don’t Get It! Variety did not get it, saying: “…as masterfully executed as the action is, watching two-plus hours of mayhem without any palpable dramatic stakes, or nuance, or any emotion at all save bloodlust offers undeniably diminishing returns. There are only so many times you can see a bullet pass through a skull before it gets deadening, and then almost dull.” this is my favorite headline pic.twitter.com/rVxpp6LskH — 𝘣𝘪𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘨𝘪𝘳𝘭 𝘬𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘯 (@glamourfilm) May 12, 2019 Anyway, as always, we should all just go and make up our minds! Opinions are like assholes — it’s best not to talk about them! Please don’t let the dog die in john wick 3 Please don’t let the dog die in john wick 3 Please don’t let the dog die in john wick 3 Please don’t let the dog die in john wick 3 Please don’t let the dog die in john wick 3 Please don’t let the dog die in john wick 3 Please don’t le — Subway – 5’10” (@Rocco__Rocco) May 8, 2019 John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum hits cinemas in Australia on May 16.<doc-sep>The word ‘epic’ gets thrown around a lot, but ‘masterpiece’ still carries an air of exclusivity and import. But having great action isn’t enough for everyone, it actually might be too much. In one of the few less enthusiastic reviews thus far, Variety’s Andrew Barker lamented that the action is action for its own sake and not in service to any deeper purpose. He said:<doc-sep>This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website Got it!<doc-sep>One of Hollywood's best action franchises gets bigger — if not always better — in a bloody sequel that functions as a meditation on fame. For a semi-retired super assassin who’s killed more people than the Bubonic plague, John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is actually a pretty relatable guy. Beneath the concave cheekbones, the magical handguns with infinite bullet capacity, and the byzantine criminal underworld that stretches to every corner of the globe, he’s just a monosyllabic middle-aged man who wants to be left the fuck alone. When the first movie of this increasingly ridiculous saga began, Mr. Wick was grieving his wife’s death in peace — then some Russian mobsters made the mistake of killing his dog (her name was Daisy, and she was very cute). This aggression, unknowingly committed against a man so dangerous that he used to be known as “Baba Yaga,” forced John back into the network of contract killers he’d once left behind. And ever since the shadowy crime lords of the High Table sniffed blood, they haven’t lost the scent or minded their own business. At the end of “John Wick: Chapter 2,” our laconic hero committed a big no-no by shooting a pest on the consecrated grounds of the Continental Hotel, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and every New Yorker knows what it’s like when the world gets a bit too close for comfort. Giddy, exhausting, and breathtakingly violent, “John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum” begins a few seconds after the previous installment left off, with the excommunicated assassin trying to make the most of the hour-long headstart he’s been given to hide before the $14 million bounty on his head is triggered and the entire criminal underworld comes after him. Of course, anyone who’s seen the previous films in this unexpected franchise knows that its criminal underworld is more of an overworld, and that almost every featured extra — from street vendors and waiters to dog-walkers and homeless people — is a heat-packing hired gun who uses their role in the capitalist system as a disguise for their deeper allegiance to a veiled society that operates on an ancient market of codes and blood oaths. Now that Mr. Wick is square in the middle of all of those crosshairs, it’s become comically impossible for the deathless widower to find the solace he seeks. He’s a target, and it seems like the entire world has its finger on the trigger; he used to be anonymous, but now he’s a celebrity. ﻿ In its most enjoyably demented moments, “Parabellum” is nothing short of a non-stop metaphor for being famous. Less artful but more concussive than its immediate predecessor, this latest outing finds Mr. Wick being clocked by strangers every time he enters a room, stalked by his biggest fans, and so desperate for someone who will treat him like an actual human being that he travels all the way to the Sahara Desert to find them. Everyone in the world knows him by name, New York City is the only place on Earth he can hide in plain sight, and the perks of his job don’t seem to compare with the harassment that comes with them. As Wick stumbles through the wet neon streets of Times Square — returning us to a surprisingly involved film world that flows like “The Raid” and looks like a hyper-saturated Instagram feed — it’s hard not to think of Reeves’ recent experience on a malfunctioning airplane, and how even that death-defying ordeal was turned into a viral moment (to the actor’s mild chagrin). Reeves once said that Wick was 40% him, but that number seems to have crept up a bit this time around. No movie has ever expressed the fight for anonymity with such viscerally literal force. True to the serialized nature of its title, “John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum” starts in media res and ends on a cliffhanger. For an 131-minute film that devotes roughly 110 minutes of its runtime to people shooting each other in the head at close range, it would be almost impossible to follow for someone who isn’t up to speed. Still, the gist of the plot is pretty simple: John Wick kills a lot of people. Like, a lot of people. By the end of “Parabellum,” he’s basically the leading cause of death in henchmen between the ages of 25 and 50. More of a one-man massacre than ever before (but just raggedy enough to keep things “real”), Mr. Wick fights in a punishingly brutal style that builds on what director Chad Stahelski invented for the character in the previous films. This is a character who appears to know every single language under the sun, but violence is the most expressive part of his vocabulary (Reeves speaks maybe 100 words in the entire movie). Chinese wushu, Japanese judo, Southeast Asian silat, American Glock… Wick is fluent in them all. But while Stahelski and his team have obviously put a great deal of thought into every frame of fisticuffs, “Parabellum” is so relentless that it often devolves into a numbing flurry of shoulder flips and headshots. If “Chapter 2” bordered on high art for how cleverly it weaved tactical shootouts into public locations (and made every fight operate like an organic bit of world-building), “Chapter 3” is more out in the open. A sneaky little skirmish in Grand Central Station doesn’t live up to Stahelski’s creative potential, even if it’s amazing they pulled off the scene at all. Elsewhere, a motorcycle chase along an empty Manhattan bridge is too rushed and blurry to deliver the “Fury Road” ferocity it teases, and the climactic brawl — which makes great use of some familiar faces, and hinges on a funny dynamic of mutual respect — is overwhelmed by a set that looks like a high-end watch commercial, and feels like a watered-down retread of the house of mirrors sequence from the end of the previous movie.<doc-sep>
The man, the myth, the legend John Wick has returned in Chapter 3 – Parabellum. Ahead of its official release, critics have unleashed their reviews and by the sounds of it, Chapter 3 is another bloody thrilling rampage packed with a tonne of “A fucking pencil!” moments. ‘Parabellum’ refers to the Latin phrase, ‘Si vis pacem, para bellum’, which means ‘If you want peace, prepare for war’. Considering we’ve only copped the tail end of the phrase here, expect a lot of brutal deaths. Again directed by Chad Stahelski, John Wick: Chapter 3 picks up right where Chapter 2 dropped off. Keanu Reeves returns as the sharply-dressed super-assassin who has been excommunicated from the international assassin’s guild – the High Table – after he… uh… did something in the second movie. As a result, Wick cops a $14 million bounty on his head and the entire guild is out to get him. At the time of writing, John Wick: Chapter 3 has a cool 97 per cent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes based off of 39 critic reviews. Entertainment Weekly graded the film A- and described it as “high art”. The third film in this unlikely sleeper franchise is, hands down, the most giddily brutal and bananas film in the series to date. So much so, that I completely gave up on keeping a running tab of the film’s bodycount after the first 10 minutes and just settled in for all of the giddy carnage. I don’t mean to give the impression that John Wick 3 is anything grander than a gorgeously choreographed, gratuitously violent action movie. But as gorgeously choreographed, gratuitously violent action movies go, it’s high art. Goddamn. The Hollywood Reporter‘s bottom line: “More thrilling ass-kickery than even dedicated fans could expect.” Uproxx frothed it: Like John Wick himself, this third chapter feels like a lean, mean, fighting machine – and, yes, it’s the best film of the franchise so far, even surpassing the first film. There are moments in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum where I thought to myself, “Well, I’ve never seen that before.” According to Polygon, the movie followed the same Wick formula but it was still a ride and a half with a couple of improvements. Throw a horse chase, a Villainess-esque motorcycle-katana fight, and a healthy dose of electro-Vivaldi into the mix, and it’s just enough to keep the Wick formula working — and keep an audience wanting more. Of Stahelski’s work, Variety wrote: It’s important to stress just how well-made this film is. Since making his debut on the first “John Wick,” Stahelski’s technical ambition and ability has grown substantially each time out, and it’s hard to think of too many filmmakers outside of Asia who are willing to invest the sort of care and detail-work into combat scenes that Stahelski provides over and over again. But at two hours and 11 minutes and with all the guns and guns and guns, Variety thought the film was “deadening”. Watching two-plus hours of mayhem without any palpable dramatic stakes, or nuance, or any emotion at all save bloodlust offers undeniably diminishing returns. There are only so many times you can see a bullet pass through a skull before it gets deadening, and then almost dull. Similarly, Indiewire gave the film a grade of B. But while Stahelski and his team have obviously put a great deal of thought into every frame of fisticuffs, “Parabellum” is so relentless that it often devolves into a numbing flurry of shoulder flips and headshots. Although, Indiewire are absolutely sure fans will love it and demand more and more. “With the significant exception of “Mission: Impossible,” this is easily the best action franchise Hollywood has going these days, and it would be great for it to keep going with renewed focus,” they wrote. AV Club felt the same way. Though Parabellum delivers at least a couple of action scenes that rank with the best of the series there’s a certain fatigue to its two biggest set pieces, both of which pit Wick and his allies against unending waves of faceless henchmen. Wick is unstoppable. Do the movies know where to stop? Lastly, IGN gave the film a rating of 8.5.