John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (2019)

I suppose that there are two ways of looking at the John Wick films.  One is to see them as movies with lots of fighting.  Each one serves as a vehicle for some pretty awesome action.  The other is to think of it as a group of action sequences so spread out that it requires way more than two hours to tell the story.  After all, Mr. Wick is going up against almost everyone.  That’s a lot of people to take out with just once pencil.

Now that I’ve seen all three movies, I’m leaning towards the second explanation.  If you were to remove or greatly reduce the fighting, you’d probably be down to a pretty short story.  Mind you, it’s a decent story, but that’s not why you came to see John Wick: Chapter 3.  After all, para bellum translates as Prepare for War.  That’s just what the title character has gotten himself into.  (As a single word, Parabellum likely refers to a model of gun.)

The movie picks up right after Chapter 2 ends, with Wick having most of his hour lead left.  He heads to the New York Public Library to find a book.  Specifically, it’s hollowed-out book that contains some a cross, some coins and a picture of his deceased wife.  He puts the picture back and takes the other items.  Using them won’t be so easy; he has to fight his way out of the library, using the book as a weapon.

After what Wick did in the second movie, everyone is after him.  There’s a bounty on his head in excess of $10,000,000.  It’s in his best interests to get the heck out of Dodge.  That’s what the cross is for, though.  It’s his ticket to Morocco, where he meets up with someone who owes him.

Meanwhile, The Adjudicator shows up in New York City.  The organization that Wick used to work for has rules and Wick broke the big one.  Wick was declared excommunicado, which was the appropriate punishment.  The Adjudicator is there to determine who else is guilty and what their punishment is to be.  Needless to say, it leads to a few good fight scenes.

If you’ve already seen Parabellum, I would imagine that you weren’t disappointed.  It does seem like a natural extension of the first two movies.  You get some new cities, which provide new visuals.  It also provides Wick with another city to depopulate.  (I can see some guy standing on the edge of town, next to the sign that reads, “Casablanca:  Population 3,359,818”.  After Wick takes out a few people, he has to change it to 3,359,816.  Before he can update the sign, Wick kills three more people.  The guy sighs in disbelief and silently curses to himself.)

You might wonder how many new ways there are for Wick to fight.  He does use horses to kick people.  His contact in Casablanca has two trained dogs, each of which helps attack the bad guys.  Neither the horses nor the dogs seem forced, which is good.  (There did seem to be a touch of CGI with the horses, though.  That might just be my imagination, but I don‘t think the actors would want to risk actually being kicked by horse.  That would have to hurt.)

For those that haven’t seen the first two movies, I’d recommend doing that first.  While you could probably follow the action, this really is one big story.  Things will make more sense if you view the movies in order.  It is worth it, though, if you like action movies.

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Wonder Woman (2017)

There’s been talk of a Wonder Woman feature-length movie for some time now.  I remember back when Guardians of the Galaxy was in theaters, someone joked about the constant delaying on DC’s part.  DC was constantly putting it off, saying that it wasn’t the right time for a female superhero.  Meanwhile, Marvel gave us a talking raccoon.  In fact, the talking raccoon’s movie’s sequel opened a month before Wonder Woman did this past Friday.  But I digress.

It should be noted that while I saw Man of Steel, I regrettably have not had the chance to see Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice yet, which I hope to rectify soon.  While I’m assuming that there were a few references that I missed, I don’t think that I suffered much for having missed it.  The movie opens at the Louvre, where Diana is receiving a package courtesy Wayne Industries.  In it is a photograph of Diana and several other people.  The rest of the movie is told in flashback, starting with Diana’s origins on Themyscira.

She’s a defiant girl.  Her mother, Queen Hippolyta, would rather her daughter study.  Diana would rather watch the other Amazon women fight, as that’s what Diana wants to do one day.  She knows who and what she is.  She’s been told the legends and the myths.  She does eventually get what she wants, but her mother worries about what Diana really is and what she may become.

Enter Steve Trevor.  He’s a spy operating for the British Government, which he admits to only because the women of Themyscira compel him to.  He has a very important book he has to get back to the British.  He’s denied this out of security concerns.  Diana takes him back anyway, only because she believes Ares, the god of war, is responsible for The Great War.  It’s what she was meant for.  It’s what she believes her people were meant for, although they choose to sit by.  Thus begins the story.

When Diana arrives in London in 1914, she finds opposition.  She and Steve know what has to be done.  However, just as the women of Themyscira seem to have no need for men, London of 1914 seems to have no use for women.  Thus, we get the culture class.  As you might have seen in the coming attraction, she can’t believe that women’s clothing won’t allow for fighting.  She’s not even allowed to follow Steve into a room of men discussing armistice.

She’s insistent on being taken to the front lines of the war so that she might slay Ares.  Steve is somewhat reluctant, but begins to see her worth when he sees her fight.  Steve is able to get two men, Steve and Sameer, to come with them to Germany.  There, they meet Chief, who can get them where they want to be.  They do get there and Diana does have her moment to do what she needs to do, even if it means finding out some truth that she doesn’t want to hear.

There is a lot of anticipation and hype surrounding the movie, and rightfully so.  I’ll admit to having watched the coming attractions a few times whenever I had the chance.  The movie doesn’t disappoint.  There are a number of fight scenes that don‘t feel forced.  It didn’t seem like they were there to show off the CGI or the main character.  They seemed natural parts of the story, but in an epic way.

For instance, the protagonists are able to liberate a town on their way to see the main antagonists.  And when I say protagonists, I mean Diana with some assistance from Steve, Sameer, Charlie and Chief.  This is where the aspect of Diana being a woman is handled more subtly than I would have expected.  There are doubts from the men, but she doesn’t bother with putting them in their place.  She lets her ability speak for her.

This is where I felt the movie was able to walk the line very well.  It does present the sexism of a female superhero without making it seem like we’re being preached to.  She’s made to dress the part of a woman in 1918 London, which she does, for a while.  There does come a time in the movie where Diana can’t do that any more.  She’s the hero.  Dressing the part only gets you so far in life.

My only complaint was the run time.  141 minutes is a little intimidating.  I don’t know that I would have cut anything.  The movie didn’t drag at all, but it’s still a long movie.  It’s just something to consider if you have somewhere to be afterwards.

IMDb page