John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum

Note: This review contains spoilers for John Wick and John Wick: Chapter 2.

When a popular film like John Wick: Chapter 2 (Chapter 2) ends on a cliffhanger, a sequel will surely follow. Audiences would wait two years for John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (Chapter 3), which started production even before Chapter 2 had released and came with high critical praise. At the time, it had also become the highest-grossing film in the franchise, making $327.7 million against a budget of $75 million, in only 10 days. Of course, it’s difficult to maintain a high level of quality throughout a trilogy and while Chapter 3 does do that where it counts, it unfortunately feels lacking in story.

Immediately after the events of Chapter 2, John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is labeled "excommunicado" and on the run from the High Table. Once this status activates, he finds himself facing assassin after assassin trying to claim the hefty bounty on his head. As he tries to reverse his status, the High Table sends the Adjudicator (Asia Kate Dillon), who intends to punish John and his allies.

John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is on the run after he's labeled "excommunicado".

If you’re looking for good fight scenes, then you’ll find no shortage of them here. From start to finish, the action scenes never cease to amaze, with incredible choreography and seemingly no shortage of imagination, all while keeping it as grounded as possible. There’s a consistent brutality throughout that keeps your attention, sometimes with a surprising amount of humor. The setting can also add a lot to them, like a few fights that occur in a very transparent room in the Continental, with plenty of glass waiting to get shattered.

The performances are also a consistent highlight. All of the returning actors do an impressive job, especially Keanu Reeves as John Wick and Lance Reddick as Charon. Among the new characters, Halle Berry does a great job as Sofia Al-Azwar, including selling the implied history between her and John. Asia Kate Dillon also brings a strong performance as the Adjudicator, maintaining an intimidating presence throughout.

Asia Kate Dillon leaves an impression as the Adjudicator.

Building off of Chapter 2, Chapter 3 does a good amount of worldbuilding around the High Table. We get more glimpses of how they operate with older technology, which has its own charm, and get more of a sense of their worldwide influence. Plus, the film has a very consistent theme of consequence and John learns the limits of dodging them when relying on the strength of old bonds.

Although there’s plenty of praiseworthy material, the film, which is already pretty light on story, does stretch itself at the seams. While the High Table feels like a real threat for their omniscient nature, the specificity of their knowledge also stretches suspension of disbelief (how did the Adjudicator know how many bullets The Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) gave John in Chapter 2?). Some fight scenes go on a little long or risk feeling repetitive, like a lengthy encounter in Casablanca involving dogs. Additionally, some of the kills also reach the head scratching territory grazed in Chapter 2, particularly when it occurs in a crowded area and no one bats an eye. Then there’s the ending, which not only features an arguably unrealistic survival, but feels written like they knew they would get a sequel, so they didn’t need to wrap up the story just yet (they did, in fact, announce a Chapter 4 before Chapter 3’s release). In any case, it’s amazing what John has gone through in only a couple weeks, based on the compressed timeline implied through the dialogue.

In the end, I still had a good time with John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum and would easily recommend it to those who loved the first two. I would hope, however, that the follow-up sticks the landing. That is, if it really does end the story.