Movie Reviews

What started with a dog getting killed, has turned into one of the most action-packed movie franchises around with hundreds of dead bodies littered at the box-office. The third installment finds über-assassin John Wick (Keanu Reeves) with a $14 million bounty on his head after killing a member of the High Table, the shadowy international assassin’s guild we have gotten to know in the first two movies. With no one to turn to and nowhere to run, Wick can only face the army of killers head-on. You know what that means, right? A whole lot of gun-fu. And about a hundred more dead bodies. Give or take a few.

Along with director Chad Stahelski, Reeves takes us even deeper into the Wick universe where disgraced members become excommunicado and decommissioned sanctuaries are deconsecrated. If those terms sound familiar, then you have probably spent a couple of Sundays in church as well back when you were a kid. Anyway, I’m pretty sure Jesus would not approve of all the killing that goes on here. Just like I’m not a fan of the length of some of the fight scenes. It’s the third movie... we KNOW Wick can put a bullet in someone’s head. No need to show him doing the same thing over and over again. The movie’s low point? A big fight sequence that involves Halle Berry (yeah, they dug her up somewhere) and a couple of killer canines. Never knew an action sequence could be this lamely choreographed. You can practically hear the dog trainer yell at Fido to jump on the carefully placed crate.

But I gotta hand it to Stahelski and Reeves. When they are on a roll, this is still pretty good gun. Sorry, fun. They take us from New York’s Chinatown to a Moroccan palace and if somewhere along the way Reeves sees himself riding a horse through New York in a dream, then horseriding there shall be.