Score: 5 / 5
Delayed, no doubt, by the pandemic, John Wick has returned to us for my favorite film in the franchise. Four years after Parabellum, we jump back in shortly after the events of that film as our title character (Keanu Reeves) prepares, along with the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne), to get revenge on the High Table for their treachery and cruelty. After Wick kills the Elder, "the one who sits above the Table," the remaining members empower the Marquis de Gramont to use any means necessary to stop him. The Marquis, played by a delicious Bill Skarsgard, makes short work of getting started, destroying the Continental and executing Charon (the late Lance Reddick) and excommunicating Winston (Ian McShane). He then enlists a retired assassin (Donnie Yen), on threat of murdering his daughter, to find and kill Wick and end it all.
It's a lot very fast, and if you're not already on board with the series, you'll be overwhelmed quickly. Thankfully, this chapter was written more like the first than the previous two, trimming the world-building and mythology of this shadowy organization of ruthless killers and focusing much more on Wick himself and the cost this lifestyle has had on his body and mind. Sadly, many of the characters we've picked up along the way are absent here -- I missed Angelica Huston and Halle Berry, but with all the globe-spanning action, you can't include everybody -- but I liked the sharper dramatic focus and impossibly lengthy action sequences. Which is saying a lot for this film, as it is almost three hours long!
The final hour (or so, I completely lost track of time) of this film is one of the most electrifying action sequences I've ever seen. Period. Urgent and alarming, beautiful and brutal -- much like the series in general -- it makes a strong case for artistic and elegant violence. It's not wholly unlike some video games, which master action in ways few films do: there are clear stakes, the focus is on one (or at most two) characters, and there is little editing to distract from choreography and martial arts. But this is true of every action sequence in these films, not just this final hour (which takes place on a lengthy stone staircase below Sacré-Cœur; did I mention that this film mostly takes place in a gorgeously shot Paris?). There's one chase-and-fight scene around the Arc de Triomphe that had my eyes popping our of my skull, and another in a bizarrely trippy nightclub surrounded by dancers who generally seem uncaring about the violence. Apart from the skill with which these sequences were designed and executed, one wonders about the intention behind them, perhaps commenting on the ways regular passers-by don't seem to notice -- or care -- about bodies piling up within eyesight.
Most people come to these movies for Reeves, and he's at his best here, injecting his vengeful, violent protagonist with a weariness and emotional exhaustion that is pitch-perfect for (SPOILER ALERT) what may well be his final film in the franchise. Like Reeves or not, you have to admire his ability to know exactly what the film around him needs his character to do, and he fulfills it in every moment. I come to these movies more for Dan Laustsen's cinematography, which reaches impossibly brilliant heights this time around. I hope this isn't the end of the series, but if it is, it's a hell of a way to go out.
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