John Wick 3: Parrabellum

The John Wick franchise seemed to start as a slightly jokey premise – “they killed his dog, so he killed everybody”. And in many ways they remain very eccentric films – the complex etiquette and cultural standards of different groups of professional killers as they engage each other, and the extreme style with which the proceedings take place mean there’s no way you can take these as realist narratives, and therefore divorce us to enjoy the balletic fights and the iconic performers in roles that fit them like gloves. After some overly-complex manoeuvrings in John Wick 2, this one gets straight down to stripping back the complexities to a very simple premise – everybody in New York (and possibly in the world) wants to kill John Wick, and John Wick has to survive on the run. Keanu’s deadpan suits this like … well, a really good suit (and he gets a new one to replace the much-abused one he’s been wearing for most of the first two films). There’s good feature roles for the returning Ian McShane, Lance Reddick and Lawrence Fishburne, along with brand new ones for Anjelica Houston (proving that in the right role an overblown Russian accent is a gift, not an impediment), Halle Berry (who finally gets to show her badass roots after years of being in not-quite-right roles that never quite knew how to use her) and Mark Dascascos (whose physical high-camp from his days on Iron Chef fit quite well with his targeted attacks on Keanu). Oh, you could regret that, perhaps, the film slightly wears towards the end as the final battle goes that little bit too long, and the blatant setup for a further sequel means we’re fated to keep on going with this, but, really, when an action movie series is as kinetic, stylish and stripped-to-the-bone as this, why complain?