Who needs young and upcoming action heroes when you have the likes of Keanu Reeves?
Now, I don’t think Reeves is a fantastic actor. In fact, I don’t even know if I’d say that he’s good. We all know hes a fantastic human being and down to earth person, so there’s no denying that. But I’d say the best quality about him as an actor is that he’s dedicated to his craft, and that he’s good at choosing movies that suit his acting range. John Wick is in my opinion his best franchise over The Matrix, no contest. While the franchise itself doesn’t really do anything new or innovative, it doesn’t need to. At its core, the John Wick franchise started with very humble 90’s action-style roots, and then blossomed into an insane cinematic universe that doubles down on an all-encompassing assassin syndicate that spans the entire world.
There’s not too much to say about this film other than the fact that the action takes up about 85% of the film. There is so much action loaded into this movie that at times you might actually find the times that someone isn’t getting their head blown off a breath of fresh air. There’s an action sequence in particular that I think lasts about 5 minutes too long, but the overall pacing of the movie is pretty good all things considered. And yes, the action is about all you could ask for. The wide shots, the lack of shaky cam, the fact that you can see everything happening cohesively, all fitting of the golden standard of filming action. There’s also a wide variety of shootouts and action scenes; some scenes are focused on close combat, others on with varied weapons (that knife one though) and then your standard mass carnage with an insane arsenal of weaponry. Reeves does what he does best in this film, which is murder scores and scores of bad guys and make it look easy. However, there are some scenes where he’s fist fighting and definitely shows his age, particularly in scenes near the end. He isn’t the spry young man he used to be, but he does a good enough job to make most of his scenes work and not take you out of the movie.
The biggest weakness in this film is the story. There are a lot of inconsequential things that happen, and the result of the absolutely bonkers ending of the second film take it to another level in this film. A lot of the things that happen don’t really make a lot of sense, but at the same time, I guess it doesn’t really have to. The issue here is that a movie franchise like this doesn’t have to have an interesting story to get people hungry for more, but it’s written in a way where the writers actually really want you to take the story seriously and care about it. The best way I can describe this film is that it tries to do its best impression of The Raid 2 and instead ends up being The Fast and the Furious. Is that bad? No, not necessarily. It’s endlessly entertaining, but there’s a lot of ridiculousness that might make you roll your eyes.
In the end, this is one of the most consistently entertaining franchises, and I’m not mad that they’ve already announced a fourth film. Keanu isn’t getting any younger, so they ought to use his talents while he’s still capable of pulling off these crazy stunts. I think the team behind this franchise has found something special, and I would be surprised if fans of the series were anything but pleased with this third installment.
Grade: B+/81
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