John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum

***John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum*** (also known as simply ***John Wick 3***) is a 2019 American neo-noir action thriller film starring Keanu Reeves as the eponymous character. It is the third installment in the John Wick film series, following John Wick (2014) and John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017). The film is directed by Chad Stahelski and written by Derek Kolstad, Shay Hatten, Chris Collins, and Marc Abrams, based on a story by Kolstad. It also stars Halle Berry, Laurence Fishburne, Mark Dacascos, Asia Kate Dillon, Lance Reddick, Anjelica Huston, and Ian McShane. In the film, which picks up minutes after the end of the previous film, ex-hitman John Wick finds himself on the run from legions of assassins after a $14 million contract is put on his head due to his recent actions. The next film, *John Wick - Chapter 4*, is set to be released in March 2023.

## Plot

After gunning down a member of the High Table -- the shadowy international assassin's guild -- legendary hit man John Wick finds himself stripped of the organization's protective services. Now stuck with a $14 million bounty on his head, Wick must fight his way through the streets of New York as he becomes the target of the world's most ruthless killers.

## Why Its Still The Wick

1. It continues to retain charm of the previous films, with giving explore the new adventures worldbuilding of John Wick.
2. Keanu Reeves gets another amazing performance of John Wick, once again and gained his major character development.
3. The motorcycle battle seamlessly shifts from sections shot on location to those shot in front of a green screen. The CGI elements are also so good that it's almost impossible to tell that the more dangerous stunts weren't actually performed by humans.
4. Excellent directing by Chad Stahelski, much like the first two films.
5. The scene where Wick disassembles several revolvers to fire a specific bullet has been mocked as possibly the most inefficient way possible to access a weapon, yet gets a pass due to being a reference to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
6. Fantastic soundtrack by Tyler Bates that is the major step up of the previous movies. From the first trailer, there's a cover of "The Impossible Dream" by Andy Williams.
7. The final confrontation the film has built up to comes to a beautiful climax: John vs Zero. At this point John is exhausted from the nearly non-stop fighting and Zero is fresh and ready to rumble. Not only is John able to match the other assassin almost blow for blow in a brutal and bloody showdown, he soon dominates by performing a Stealth Hi/Bye twice on Zero, using Zero's previous mirror trick back on him and once he gets his hands on his opponent's sword, he stabs him so quickly Zero does not even realize John severed his arteries with such speed and skill he completely disabled his arm and leg. The pain only hits him seconds later when he tries to swing his fist, and realizes he can't.
8. Previous *John Wick* films are filled to the brim with Head Shots. This movie has plenty of those, but apparently the action choreographers wanted to spice things up and include some different attacks. Specifically, nut shots. Lots and lots of Nut Shots. There's basically at least one in every major action scene.
9. The assassins' world in Wick is pretty frightening, almost everyone in New York either knows about them or doesn't even see the bodies dropping, immigrant children are trained into becoming killing machines for the High Table and the organisation's history and presence is implied to go back to the Middle Ages. Before this movie, a popular fan theory was that Winston was among the founders of the system, because of how old he was and how much power he had, but it turns out he is just a serf who served for forty years and is still expendable in the eyes of the true power.

## The Only Bad Quality

1. John's "missing" finger can still be seen a couple of times after it's supposed to have been chopped off.

## Reception

*John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum* received positive reviews from critics, audiences and fans alike, with praise for the action sequences, musical score, visual style, and Reeves's performance. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 90%, with an average rating of 7.45/10, based on 343 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "*John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum* reloads for another hard-hitting round of the brilliantly choreographed, over-the-top action that fans of the franchise demand.". On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 73 out of 100, based on 50 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale, the same as its predecessor, while those at PostTrak gave it 4.5 out of 5 stars and a "definite recommend" of 75%. Rotten Tomatoes also ranked it at No. 2 on its list of "The Best Action Movies of 2019".