I may be a latecomer to this series -- I only saw the first two last week -- but John Wick is a pretty awesome action series, and the latest installment is probably my favorite so far.
Recently declared excommunicated from the league of assassins, a severely wounded John Wick is on the run in Manhattan. With less than an hour to go, he seeks aid and resources before his former associates and rivals will attempt to claim the sizable bounty on his head. With every step, John notices innocuous folks on the streets watching him, knowing full well they have money on their mind and murder at their fingertips. Who knew there were so many assassins in New York? (Said no one ever.)
With the lack of need for exposition, we dive headfirst into the melee as John fights for his life. He also fights to take lives, as the first act of this nonstop-action flick is nothing if not a massacre. Spectacular fight after brutal assault, it's the cinematic equivalent of a roller coaster, churning your stomach, making you squeal, and inciting laughs of genuine humor or sympathetic pain. It's occasionally disturbing, in the theater, to hear other viewers laughing hysterically at a man getting his head smashed or bones crunched because you're never sure if you're sitting in a dark room with psychos, sadists, or just discomforted people confronted with agony.
But John Wick 3 is probably my favorite yet in the series. Here, it's all balls-out mayhem and style, a gorgeous and wicked fever dream of an action movie in which blood spills, skin rips, and it's all done in a tasteful way. Tasteful, but perhaps because it's so tasteless. It's a nearly unique aesthetic -- the kind Tarantino only wishes he could dish out -- and while I desperately wish for another Atomic Blonde, I'll accept another installment of this franchise. Especially now that Halle Berry brings her attack dogs to the fray!
That, and the stars are still in play. Laurence Fishburne, Ian McShane, and now Angelica Huston? We'll take some more of that, please!
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