It all started when they killed his dog. Then... they stole his car. So... he killed them all. All of them. Every one. Every single living person on the planet was killed by John Wick. But, of course... the journey wasn't over. There's still, inexplicably, even more people for John Wick to kill. And in this third installment of the franchise... he kills them. He kills them dead. Today is December 8th, 2018. I know that's not the date you're reading this. I got to go see a test screening of John Wick: Chapter 3 and it's one of the greatest experiences of my movie-going life. It's so much cooler knowing I'm seeing a movie that's going to kill at the box office, many many months before its release. I also get to see how the studios mess with it (if, at all) before the final product arrives. I did, however, get to see it with a lot of the special effects still not completed. I won't tell you how... but John Wick loses a finger in this movie (as if mere fingers could hold him back), but the movie I saw, Keanu Reeves has a weird black sheath over his finger the rest of the film, one that will be edited out in post for the final product. I also got to see a version where there's a fucking awesome chase scene in which John Wick rides a horse in the middle of a busy New York street during a shoot out... and I saw all the wires on both Keanu and the horse. It should've made for a less-than-desirable moviegoing experience, but John Wick is so badass, not even horse wires could take away from the fun.
The movie picks up where the previous one left off. John Wick has been excommunicated from The Continental and has been given one hour by the hotel's manager Winston (Ian McShane) to escape before every criminal gets a text from The High Table that there's a 14 million dollar bounty on Wick's head. Wick is shuffling through the busy streets of New York with fifteen minutes left before the world of crime decides it's time for them to step up to Wick - and get killed in the most beautifully gruesome ways. In the first half hour of the movie alone John Wick probably kills more people than he did in the other two movies combined. Shit, the first person we see him kill... he kills with a library book. It's the perfect intro to a character that has now been ingrained in American pop culture as a reliable source of pure skull-pounding entertainment. After killing half the world, Wick uses a few of his underground contacts, including a Russian ballet Director played by Anjelica Huston, to escape America, make his way to Casablanca, Morocco in search of a way to gain favor back with The High Table, get reinstated, and have the bounty taken off his head. Meanwhile the Table has sent an Adjudicator to punish those who've helped Wick, as well as hire a badass contract killer named Zero (Mark Dacascos - Iron Chef's The Chairman) to take Wick out.
There's a lot of moving parts in this John Wick film, and while the plot elements are a lot more thin than the previous movies, there's still a lot of fun to be had. Wick's motivation to survive at this point is less believable than the other two and the only reason he gives is that he wants to keep the memory of his dead wife alive, and for that he's willing to kill everyone who comes after him and even consider going back into the life of working for The High Table as a contract killer. And while the story and the character motivation of the other two movies are what really elevated these movies from a throwaway action film to critical success - by the third movie, it's not important anymore. And while I assume it will take some critical flak, the action in this movie is so original and eye-popping, it won't matter with critics, or even with fans. While the story itself isn't up to snuff with the rest of the franchise, the action far exceeds anything in the other two. This movie is, essentially, one big action-packed franchise climax. There's hardly any room to breathe in between all of the (still very unique) action sequences. Wick doesn't fight alone in this movie, either. I mean, he does for a lot of it, but there's a great sequence in the middle where he teams up with an old partner played by Halle Berry, and the two of them fight a hoard of henchmen. Not only that, but Berry's dogs get in on the fight. The movie that started with Wick fighting people because they killed his dog - ends with Wick fighting alongside actual fighting dogs! It's fucking perfect!
Give director Chad Stahleski all the credit, the man knows how to make unique fight sequences. It's evident in the other two movies (of which he also directed), but he elevates his game with this one. As I mentioned earlier, the first fight of the movie happens in a library with nothing but a book. Then, without giving anything away, there's a five minute scene where Wick is fighting off Triads in a knife shop and they're all just hucking throwing-knives at one another in what is probably the most memorable fight of the entire movie. There's fights from horses, there's fights with dogs, there's gunfights galore, and the shootout inside the actual Continental will leave you breathless (and probably make you forget to blink). There's a ton of fun to be had in this movie that makes the fact that the story is weak almost forgettable. Keanu, God bless him, hams it up to a thousand with this movie and he knows he's doing it. So, some of the eye-rollng lines he gives, we're laughing along with him, not at him (also we would never laugh at John Wick... ever). The returning characters are all great, as most of the survivors from the other movies return. But the best returning character, we all know is Charon, the Concierge, who FINALLY gets to fight alongside Wick in a very memorable shootout.
And while the movie has its faults - the thin storyline, the poor rationale for Wick's fighting, Halle Berry's acting in certain moments, the last minute or so of the movie... it doesn't matter. Because John Wick Chapter 3 is so much fun, you don't have to worry about all the rest of it. There's a reason it's three movies deep and has such a huge following. Stahleski knows what we want to see and he gives it to us tenfold. There's still the beautiful cinematography, there's still the gorgeous set locations, there's still the exhilarating fight sequences, there's still even John Wick accurately shooting people and reloading his gun OFTEN - it's so often in fact, there's a running gag of reloading in the movie that garners plenty of laughs, followed by an "oh shittttt!!!!" And even though I didn't get to see the final product the way you're going to (for instance, at the end of the horse-shootout scene, I just got a black screen with words that read: "John Wick kills the last two Triads and loses the horse" - how badass is that???), I can already tell you to be excited for this movie. If you loved the other two films, or even kind of liked them, this will be a fulfilling chapter that you will definitely want to see as soon as humanly possible.
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