John Wick seems to be quickly becoming the next Rambo or Commando of this generation. Although not totally bulletproof like the aforementioned, it seems as though nothing can kill the John Wick train.
I adored the first two movies; the first more than the second, but both were great in my opinion. The semi-unique story, lots of intricate action, a summer blockbuster for sure. John Wick 3 tries hard to continue this trend, but if this were darts, it would miss the board.
For me, the John Wick movies were great because of the secret assassin society and the rules and regulations that went with that. The original two movies were about John avenging his dog of all things. Wick three missed all of these cues; maybe not totally, but certainly. People will argue, and be quick to defend this movie right away I'm sure.
There are tons and tons of fight scenes. Very intricate, very elaborate, very predictable. These fight scenes tried to push the envelope of what the first two movies started by adding much more gore to the kill scenes, which is not in its-self a bad thing but seemed forced in scenes and didn't follow the already pre-set "rules" of the John Wick universe. Again, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Stories should evolve over time in a series. There simply were many times when the makers decided to add gore into the kills more for shock value than to move things along. It reminded me of a horror movie at times.
There were so, so many fight scenes, which doesn't sound like a bad thing. The trouble this movie had was it forgot that you should have story/fight/story/fight, and not /fight/fight/fight/sto(almost story)/fight/fight/fight/fight etc. This film felt to me like it had no soul; on the surface the action is great, but there's really no meat underneath. As one of my favorite podcasters would say, "Where's the Big Mac?"
People will say, "But they show more of the underworld..." and yes they do. The reason the movie is 2 hours and 10 minutes, is so there could be 10 minutes of the story. Again, hey, maybe that's what, you, the viewers, want to see. John Wick takes out a bad guy one after another for 2 hours. Myself though, I liked the first two because of the story going along with the fights.
When I say the fight scenes are intricate, I mean like a dance. They really, really are well done, but at times I felt myself saying, "Are these two still fighting?" Some of the fighting scenes are literally minutes long, and sometimes chaining together so all of a sudden half an hour has passed, and John's finished one fight.
Another thing that kinda' pained me about this movie was that the dog has little to no purpose anymore. It's a shame because that was the main reason for the first two movies.
I felt like Halle Berry was completely wasted in this movie. It was almost hard to watch an actress of her caliber be reduced to around ten minutes of footage, that if you removed it from the movie, wouldn't make a difference in the plot at all. Yeah the fights that John's in with her would have been harder without her if it was the case, but it's John Wick; he'd have survived.
Lastly, I need to speak about the humor in the movie. Some parts were funny to me, and some were, well, terrible. The timing on some of the jokes was way, way off versus the scene that they are in. Many of the jokes felt extremely forced, almost like the actors were saying, "Um, he wouldn't say this" and the director was saying, "It doesn't matter. Stick to the script." My biggest complaint is a joke near the end of the movie. I won't give anything away about the scene, but the joke was just stupid. Like right out of a Loonytoons episode or something. Just absolutely silly. In the theatre, I remember literally just shaking my head not believing what I just heard.
John Wick 3, to me, felt like a great action movie with no continuing soul from the first two. Action, but that's it.
Overall score: 6 out of 10 stars
Pros:
- Fight scenes are extremely well orchestrated
- Elements of the original story continue
Cons:
- Halle Berry was totally wasted as an actress
- There's no feeling of suspense because apparently, John Wick is now bulletproof, or rather, bullet-resistant
- The story is next to non-existent
- Although elements of the underworld are present from the first two films, they are not explored much more in this movie
I adored the first two movies; the first more than the second, but both were great in my opinion. The semi-unique story, lots of intricate action, a summer blockbuster for sure. John Wick 3 tries hard to continue this trend, but if this were darts, it would miss the board.
For me, the John Wick movies were great because of the secret assassin society and the rules and regulations that went with that. The original two movies were about John avenging his dog of all things. Wick three missed all of these cues; maybe not totally, but certainly. People will argue, and be quick to defend this movie right away I'm sure.
There are tons and tons of fight scenes. Very intricate, very elaborate, very predictable. These fight scenes tried to push the envelope of what the first two movies started by adding much more gore to the kill scenes, which is not in its-self a bad thing but seemed forced in scenes and didn't follow the already pre-set "rules" of the John Wick universe. Again, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Stories should evolve over time in a series. There simply were many times when the makers decided to add gore into the kills more for shock value than to move things along. It reminded me of a horror movie at times.
There were so, so many fight scenes, which doesn't sound like a bad thing. The trouble this movie had was it forgot that you should have story/fight/story/fight, and not /fight/fight/fight/sto(almost story)/fight/fight/fight/fight etc. This film felt to me like it had no soul; on the surface the action is great, but there's really no meat underneath. As one of my favorite podcasters would say, "Where's the Big Mac?"
People will say, "But they show more of the underworld..." and yes they do. The reason the movie is 2 hours and 10 minutes, is so there could be 10 minutes of the story. Again, hey, maybe that's what, you, the viewers, want to see. John Wick takes out a bad guy one after another for 2 hours. Myself though, I liked the first two because of the story going along with the fights.
When I say the fight scenes are intricate, I mean like a dance. They really, really are well done, but at times I felt myself saying, "Are these two still fighting?" Some of the fighting scenes are literally minutes long, and sometimes chaining together so all of a sudden half an hour has passed, and John's finished one fight.
Another thing that kinda' pained me about this movie was that the dog has little to no purpose anymore. It's a shame because that was the main reason for the first two movies.
I felt like Halle Berry was completely wasted in this movie. It was almost hard to watch an actress of her caliber be reduced to around ten minutes of footage, that if you removed it from the movie, wouldn't make a difference in the plot at all. Yeah the fights that John's in with her would have been harder without her if it was the case, but it's John Wick; he'd have survived.
Lastly, I need to speak about the humor in the movie. Some parts were funny to me, and some were, well, terrible. The timing on some of the jokes was way, way off versus the scene that they are in. Many of the jokes felt extremely forced, almost like the actors were saying, "Um, he wouldn't say this" and the director was saying, "It doesn't matter. Stick to the script." My biggest complaint is a joke near the end of the movie. I won't give anything away about the scene, but the joke was just stupid. Like right out of a Loonytoons episode or something. Just absolutely silly. In the theatre, I remember literally just shaking my head not believing what I just heard.
John Wick 3, to me, felt like a great action movie with no continuing soul from the first two. Action, but that's it.
Overall score: 6 out of 10 stars
Pros:
- Fight scenes are extremely well orchestrated
- Elements of the original story continue
Cons:
- Halle Berry was totally wasted as an actress
- There's no feeling of suspense because apparently, John Wick is now bulletproof, or rather, bullet-resistant
- The story is next to non-existent
- Although elements of the underworld are present from the first two films, they are not explored much more in this movie
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