John Wick Chapter 3- Parabellum. Review

John Wick Chapter 3 - Parabellum is directed by Chad Stahelski and stars Keanu Reeves, Halle Berry, Laurence Fishburne, Mark Dacascos, Asia Kate Dillon, Lance Reddick, Anjelica Houston and Ian McShane.

The plot this time revolves around John Wick going on the run after killing someone on Continental grounds, and reaching out to whoever may be willing to help him as a contact has been put on his life. And he is now the target of some of the world's top assassins.

The performances in this film are all very mixed, some work on a very serious and dramatic level, and others work on a more light-hearted level. The standout performance in this film is Keanu Reeves as John Wick. He plays the character in very much the same way he has in the previous two films. Only this time, when he is present on screen you get a sense of desperation and urgency which made his situation all the more believable

The film was written by Derek Kolstad, Shay Hatten, Chris Collins and Mark Abrahams. Once again we have fight scenes that have been choreographed rather impressively, and lots of brutal, hard-hitting action. The thing that really impressed me about it, and what make this film slightly different among the rest, is how effortlessly it can take a very violent scene and use it to have a moment of dark humour.

The film was shot by Jonathan Sela. I thought most of the cinematography was fine on average scale, but the standout shots for me were the ones of New York City. From the vehicle-filled roads, the highly-populated streets, and the brightly-lit neon buildings. I thought those were not only very visually interesting but also helped to give an accurate depiction of a real city.

The score was composed by Tyler Bates and Joel J Richard. The score is very much the same as before, rather a lot of electronic dance music, but with the exception of a brief use of sitar music when a character is stuck in the desert. It just felt like a lack of effort, followed by an attempt to compensate by adding minor new elements to the score, that in the end come off as forgettable and pitiful.

Here is where I feel the film is most flawed: it has a runtime of two hours and eleven minutes, making it the longest John Wick film. Unfortunately I don't feel that the longer runtime was taken full advantage of. A few of the fight scenes go on for so long that they begin to feel quite padded. What I found even worse about this is that, when a fight has gone on for far too long it's difficult to remain interested in it and it just becomes boring.

The conclusions I draw from this are, John Wick Chapter 3 -Parabellum has good performances, a script that definitely doesn't disappoint, some interesting nightlife visuals in the cinematography, and a complete failure of a score. And a major flaw that I was convinced a movie like John Wick would have no problem avoiding, it seems I expected too much of him.

Having taken all my pros and cons into account, I'm going to give John Wick Chapter3 - Parabellum...
B
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