Kritiken

There is an astonishing fight scene in John Wick: Chapter 3 that takes place at night in a glass building with glass floors and walls. . . . The rest lacked anything as involving, despite the aggressive, nonstop complication of every second of the film, including the title.

Parabellum is the pinnacle of the unique Wick World: an alchemy of religious iconography, Gothic mood, classical antiquity, nocturnal neo-noir, silent cinema performativity, comic-book hyper-reality, and echoes of Dante and Caravaggio.

The distinctive aesthetic – a kind of hi-tech baroque, with a touch of fetishy transgression for good measure – is not the only reason that this action series punches above its weight... spectacle, rather than internal logic, has always been what the John Wick movies do best.

Is this series wickedly cynical or shamelessly sentimental? Both, I’d say. Wick’s grief for his wife (and dog) is the film’s emotional fig leaf. We’re willing to suspend our disbelief in a hit-man with a heart of platinum as long as Reeves convinces us that Wick is worth rooting for. And that, Reeves does.

As it turns out, “John Wick 3” is not quite the “Fury Road” of the series but is easily its “Beyond Thunderdome,” a work of pop cinema so blissfully, albeit brutally, entertaining that you come out of it feeling even more resentful of its multiplex neighbors for not making a similar effort.

In “Chapter 3,” the violence has been supercharged, and so has the virtuosity. At a certain point, though, the carnage becomes deadening, its consequences no more than soulless tableaus of damage that encourage disengagement.

Stuntman-turned-director Chad Stahelski honours the choreography first and foremost – there’s none of the choppy editing that can often cover for this-will-do blockbuster combat, but bravura long takes which push the stuntmen and Reeves (with a lot of digital assistance) to the limits of their presumed endurance.

As per the two previous films, Stahelski cranks up the body count with a string of fight sequences so balletic you might forget you’re watching violence – until Reeves sinks a knife into a man’s eye. But, three movies in, franchise bloat is beginning to set in; the dead dog jokes are definitely wearing thin.

Wick 3, starring Keanu Reeves in the role he was born to play, hits you so hard in the thrill zone that instead of feeling exhausted when director Chad Stahelski calls a halt at 130 minutes, you’re panting for Chapter 4.

This worthy and fun sequel raises the narrative stakes of Wick’s journey, delves into the ridiculous lore that has come to define his world, and cooks up several new action set pieces to keep the viewer dazzled. At the same time, Parabellum is a clever meta-yarn about the burdens that come with superstardom.

It’s satisfying to watch as John Wick 3 expands the glimmers of fantastical world-building that had previously gilded the series’s retired-killer-on-the-run narrative... But the further the film illuminates the spiderweb of criminal enterprise undergirding its world, the more burdensome the overlong story becomes.

The movie should by rights be a “Wow!” But it feels bloated, self-conscious, and pretentious, with long waits between its few dazzling fights. Evidently, it’s hard to build on a premise that’s basically so vacuous and dumb.