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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nNeither\nthe first \u201cJohn Wick\u201d movie from 2014 nor its 2017 follow-up did enough\nbusiness to warrant an official review from me. How I wish they had. I could\nhave written about how much fun I had watching Keanu Reeves play the world\u2019s\ngreatest assassin amidst a world full of assassins. The second movie in\nparticular had me beaming for hours afterward, trying to whittle down which\nscene was my favorite before giving up and declaring something like a five-way\ntie. Now comes a third movie, which I wish we had gotten right after the\nsecond. How come \u201cThe Matrix\u201d gets two sequels less than six months apart from\none another and this vastly superior franchise doesn\u2019t? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At\nthe end of the second movie, John Wick (Reeves) let his emotions get the better\nof him and killed an enemy within the consecrated walls of the Continental\nhotel. The Continental, run by a man named Winston (Ian McShane) and his\nconcierge Charon (Lance Reddick) is supposed to be a safe haven for assassins,\nand anyone who violates this rule incurs the death penalty. Winston could have\nkilled Wick himself, but opted instead to excommunicate him from his community\nof assassins, with a $14 million bounty on his life going into effect in one\nhour. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In\n\u201cChapter 3,\u201d we see what happens when that hour is up. Several New York-based\nassassins try to collect the bounty, and Wick has to fend them off without\nunderworld privileges like guns and cars. He has to settle for using a heavy\nbook as a weapon and a horse for transportation (and also a weapon). He makes\nhis way to a Russian ballet Director (Angelica Huston) who can send him to\nMorocco, where he has an old friend (Halle Berry) who can put him in contact\nwith his world\u2019s High Elder so he can beg for his life. Meanwhile, an\nAdjudicator (Asia Kate Dillon), who works for this world\u2019s High Table, is using\nan assassin of her own (Mark Dacascos) to punish those who helped Wick escape\njustice, including The Director, underworld crime boss The Bowery King (Laurence\nFishburne), and Winston. The High Table is willing to deconsecrate The\nContinental in order to punish someone whose crime was violating the sanctity\nof The Continental – how\u2019s that for logic? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nhigh points of the movie are of course the gleeful action sequences where Wick\ndispatches one would-be killer after another. His favorite method is a gunshot\nto the head, but he\u2019s not above breaking into a knife museum and using whatever\nhe can find in there. The fighting is always crisp with no wasted motion. And\nit\u2019s worth mentioning that Wick and the other assassins are all professionals,\nand they\u2019re excellent about not harming or even bothering innocent bystanders.\nAn early fight scene takes place in a library, and Wick and his attacker don\u2019t\nget shushed once. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJohn\nWick: Chapter 3\u201d is the usual trigger-happy good time I\u2019ve come to expect from\nthis franchise. My only real complaint is the ending, where some of the\nfighting seems rushed (Wick should get more time to fight with two henchmen\nthat I recognize from a certain Indonesian action franchise) and nothing feels\nresolved. Granted, nobody promised that this installment would represent a\nresolution, but could this movie be a little less blatant about sequel-baiting?\nI\u2019m already sold on \u201cChapter 4\u201d because I like these movies, not because it\u2019s\nimplying a series of showdowns that frankly we could have gotten here. On the\nother hand, what am I complaining about? We\u2019re getting more \u201cJohn Wick\u201d movies\nand that\u2019s a good thing!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grade: B<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJohn Wick: Chapter 3 \u2013\nParabellum\u201d is rated R for pervasive strong violence, and some language. Its\nrunning time is 130 minutes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Bob Garver Neither the first \u201cJohn Wick\u201d movie from 2014 nor its 2017 follow-up did enough business to warrant an official review from me. How I wish they… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":42955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42954"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}