'John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum' - Movie Review

I adored the first "John Wick" movie. Of course it was silly, but the balletic "Gun-Fu" fighting was beautifully done and it was a great one-off movie. Except that it wasn't a one-off: its success brought us a glossy but really stupid sequel that I hated. When reviews hit for "John Wick 3," I let the Rotten Tomatoes score (90% as of 2019-11-18) convince me to watch a movie I was pretty sure I would hate. But even knowing that I was likely to dislike it, and willing myself to suspend disbelief, I still really hated the movie. I think the worst of it was that the martial arts, all the fighting, is noticeably sloppier than in the first episode. In the first movie, they rehearsed the fights until they flowed beautifully. In this movie, there are multiple times where people are visibly pulling blows, or waiting around for their opponent to swing or defend themselves. This is probably because they have twice as many fights as the first movie - which isn't necessarily an improvement even if you did rehearse them more. Although in this case, less fights would have meant more time in an increasingly ludicrous and illogical universe. The opening scene has John Wick finding his way into an immense, open, unguarded, and entirely unmanned antique weapons store. The perfect place for a fight between assassins, but the kind of logical discontinuity you're expected to accept every step of the way in this ridiculous piece of shit.