John Wick 3: The Killinging - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

I enjoyed John Wick 1 and John avenging his dog - as a loving dog owner (RIP Savannah) I completely understand his anger and cheered him on as he got revenge and his car back and occasionally remembered his wife.

I enjoyed John Wick 2 from what I remembered of it. Although it's amazing how many assassins there are in his world. Even people busking in Subways are ready to shoot to kill. Hell, even the homeless seem to have a hidden (underground) agenda.

I've just finished John Wick 3: Parabellum a couple of days ago...annnnnd I'm still not sure what to make of it.

AHOY - POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD.

The coolest hotel owner since Basil Fawlty

THE PLOT IN A NUTSHELL

John runs around in a battered suit and shoots a few people before calling in a favor or two from his mysterious background to travel to other places to...uh...shoot people. After shooting a few more people he finally finds someone who can solve his problems, if he shoots one more person. And then continues to shoot people until he dies.

So he travels back home in a new suit where he shoots a few more people and then decides that maybe he doesn't want to shoot people so much anymore and then he gets shot instead.

He wakes up in a place still angry and it's highly likely there's enough angst still in there for John Wick 4: The Shootingning.

Any questions?

ACTUALLY...

It's more a slight drawing back of the curtain of the mysterious organisation he works for, the High Table (but only slightly). The group that seems to have more employees than Google and yet are quite happy to (literally) cut people out of the scene if they feel they haven't acted fast enough or in most cases, missed a prime opportunity to shoot John Wick.

Their reach is global, their resources plenty and they seem to have absorbed just about every crime family under the sun including ninjas, Russian mobsters and every hood in Casa Blanca. I don't remember seeing any police or military around, I'm assuming the high table had them all wiped out.

Of course not everyone who works for the High Table seems to follow their strict rules. Some operate 'Under the table' in the worst drunk uncle joke this side of Christmas. There's one guy above the table (whatever that means - a table dancer perhaps) and the whole secret kill them all society seems to have spawned from the plot of Assassin's Creed?

Welp, confusing. Let's just shoot everyone instead shall we?

WHAT I LIKED (THE GOOD)

-The battles are immense. John fights on a horse, on a bike, with knives, pistols, handguns, shotguns, rifles, everything. He fights against just about every criminal type in existence and even headbutts the dessert. He's a sharp looking killing machine.

-Ian McShane. He plays a mean god in American Gods and the guy could make a tax reform speech seem exciting. They couldn't have found a better manager of the Continental than Ian.

-His front desk counterpart Lance Reddick (Charon) is wonderful. The kind of guy who will cooly repel invaders with a armor piercing shotgun and then tut at the blood spilling out staining the tiles, feeling the customers of the hotel won't enjoy walking through the gore.

.

-Zero. His fandom and slightly goofy admiration of John Wick is humorous in amongst not giving a single care in the world that his entire student army has been wiped out.

Try the blowfish!

-The references to various wars. The American civil war era weapons, the Samurai armour, the guy who looks like Winston Churchill that briefly walks by at the train station. Although I read through IMDB that the scene where he builds a gun quickly was homage to The Good, The Bad and The

Ugly.

Halle Berry's dogs - best trained dogs ever! (She spent 6 months dog training too which is pretty cool.)

NOT SO MUCH..(THE BAD)

The Adjudicator - The character is cold, calculating and in charge but I feel the moving misses the opportunity to show how lethal they are (and in turn explaining how they got to where they are). Even just one stupidly quick kill (in a movie of long drawn out kills) with something unsuspecting (like the umbrella perhaps) would be enough to paint the picture that The Adjudicator walks the walk AND talks the talk.

The favours - Okay I get that he's been a busy man but John seems to cash in more favors than a junkie with a dole payment in the movie. I'm going to use my ticket and this medallion and I'm sure if I look deep enough in this jacket I'll find someone's blood oath on a dry cleaning bill..

OH GOD WHAT? (THE UGLY)

Super painkillers - After getting stabbed in the shoulder, John seeks medical aid. After that he gets bounced off cars, through glass, punched, kicked, sliced and shot...all without a moment to break out the band aids. Like people continually point out in the reviews, it's like watching the video game GTA 5 on god mode..

The dessert - 'Walk until you can't walk anymore then look up' is the most vaguest of instructions ever and yet John treks into the hot sands until he falls over and magically is discovered by a henchman of the head cheese. Lucky that!

The big boss (The Elder) - About as convincing as a guy who lives in the middle of nowhere can be, about as menacing as a squashed scorpion and spends less time on screen than some of John's fights. How is it that the king of the homeless seems far more intimidating than THE GUY WHO RULES IT ALL? Also he manages to solve things in one sentence really, ultimately 'Go home, kill a guy, keep working for us, we'll call you..'

The plot - Well, there isn't really one. Fight, fight here, fight fight there. Kill a guy, kill that guy, go over there, kill some more. Go home, kill them all. Wake up ready to kill again. Glorious!

4 out of 10 for me. What did you think?