Looks like Keanu Reeves has grown from his past mistakes. Like The Matrix, John Wick burst onto the scene, and built a mythology around its tale. While The Matrix sequels petered out by their ending, Chapter 3 of the John Wick series shows no signs of slowing down. Parabellum is a wild ride that further expands the mythology of John Wick while kicking ass and shooting multiple people in the head at the same time. Yeah! I’m thinking he’s back! And better than ever!
Parabellum kicks off immediately after John Wick: Chapter 2 ended. Our hero (played by Keanu Reeves), is about to be excommunicado from the assassin’s network, with a bounty on his head for $14 Million. John assesses his options, and decides to see the famed Elder, but to do so, he needs help from an old assassin friend, Sophia (Halle Berry). While John’s seeking guidance, The Adjudicator (Asia Kate Dillon) seeks amends for John Wick’s actions from the people who helped him: Winston (Ian McShane), the head of the Continental Hotel, and the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne).
I almost wish the first 30 minutes of John Wick was the whole movie, because it is an end to end thrill ride of epic proportions. Excommunicado means that John has no real resources from anyone in the assassin’s network, and EVERY assassin on the planet will be trying to kill him. So John has to improvise kill a bunch of people, using all the weapons available to him at the moment: books, horses, antique shops themselves become murder weapons for the resourceful Wick, with simultaneously funny and awesome results. There’s an immediacy and clear understanding of the stakes in these minutes that made me wish the writers/directors found a way to make that the whole movie, but as a tone setter, the audience will be all in by the time John works his way to Morocco.
John Wick slows way down by the time we get to Morocco, setting up the movie’s continuing mythology and endgame. The cool fights still are there, they’re just not as clever as the first 30 minutes, save the Berry/Reeves team up in the trailer. The writers here do a decent job expanding, but not exhausting, on John Wick’s backstory and the infrastructure of this assassin society, giving us little bits, but never overexplaining. This way, by the time we get to the third act, we’re not only invested in John Wick, but Winston, the Concierge (Lance Reddick), and the Bowery King and what the Adjudicator and her main henchmen Zero (Mark Dacascos) have in store for everyone. The third act fights then are beautifully shot and more visceral, relying on hand to hand combat to get the job done, and finally giving me that Raid/John Wick Crossover I wanted.
Like most people, I thought I’d seen the last of Keanu Reeves as a badass action hero. But John Wick proves he’s still got enough in the tank to draw viewers in with action and philosophy. Kudos to Chad Stahelski, the director, for convincing Reeves to take this part, for getting the superb action choreographers from The Raid movies into your franchise, and for giving me Jason Mantzoukas playing a character called The Tick Tock Man.