John Wick is Getting Old

I thoroughly enjoyed the first John Wick movie, it had an extremely simple premise and a classic story of revenge with a satisfying conclusion. The second movie was even better with more world building about the underground life of a contract killer with a story that carries over from the previous film. The third movie however left much to be desired.

Quick summary

John Wick is a former high profile assassin who left the profession after falling in love. His blissful post-assassin life was short lived as his new wife succumbed to cancer and shortly after her death, she arranged that a beagle puppy be delivered to his doorstep as a symbol to carry on without her. After a quick scene of him bonding with the puppy, he runs into Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen) playing as a punk Russian kid who is upset that John Wick didn’t immediately hand over his vintage mustang while at a gas station. Later in the night, Theon Greyjoy breaks into his house, kills the puppy and steals John Wick’s car while his thugs hit Wick with a tire iron. The rest of the movie is John Wick hunting Theon Greyjoy and his crew, killing liberally as he goes. Second movie is very similar to the first but instead Theon Greyjoy’s dad now wants revenge for his son’s death. John Wick kills even more people that eventually ends when he kills the father BUT the way he kills the father is a big no no. During the second movie, the audience is introduced into a world of highly skilled assassins and the rules everyone must follow including no killing in the safe zones. John Wick broke one of these rules by killing the father at one of the safe zones, The Continental Hotel thus he now has a sizable bounty on his head open for any contract killer to claim. The second movie ended on a great cliffhanger of John Wick running through the streets of New York trying to flee all possible assassins out to claim the bounty on his head.

** Spoilers Below **

The plot of the third movie is still extremely simple - John Wick is running. That’s literally it. There really isn’t a villain in the third movie since John Wick basically killed everyone in the previous two that would pose a threat yet here were are with John Wick 3: Running away from people and things. Throughout the entire movie, Wick is navigating through the streets of New York, heavily injured all while fighting off would be assassins trying to claim the bounty. Right off the bat I’m full of questions. If John Wick is such a legend in this world of contract killing, why would any assassin try to take him on and claim the bounty? Where is the bounty money coming from and just how many assassins are there in New York City? Apparently everyone in this movie is secretly an assassin. That sushi chef on the corner of 73rd and Madison, he’s an assassin; that grandma feeding pigeons in Central Park, she’s an assassin; there were even two dogs in the movie that were assassins. Everyone in this movie is an assassin!

Miraculously, John Wick has a connection that can grant him to fly anywhere in the world despite being hunted by every crime organization in New York City and he chooses to go to Morocco. While in Casablanca, he meets up with Halle Berry and her two dogs (all assassins by the way) that leads up to the first of several big action scenes. Out of all the action scenes in the John Wick movie series, this was by far my favorite. I was blown away on how well the fight scene was choreographed with dogs being the best thing about the fight. I never knew how well trained combat dogs could be until this movie. I thought Halle Berry did a great job however she was only in the movie for maybe 15 minutes and didn’t further the plot at all. Looking back, I realized that this entire scene actually served no purpose to the overall story of the movie but I imagine the director needed to meet a certain body count quota in order to release the film thus why there is a scene where John Wick kills 53 people.

It’s not until halfway through the movie does the audience learn what the plot is - Wick wants to continue living as a way to preserve the memory of his dead wife but has to join back into the assassin organization to do so. He agrees to do so almost too quickly (by chopping off his wedding finger) but I felt that was a stupid reason. He left the organization because he wanted to live a happy married life but now that he is a widow, he decided to chuck that idea out the window? Something about him quickly joining back into the assassin gang felt like a slap in the face to the memory of his dead wife and puppy but here we are with John now getting a new task to kill Ian McShane that runs the Continental hotel (where Wick killed Theon Greyjoy’s dad in the previous film). He flies back to New York all while still fighting off assassins wanting to claim the bounty and just before he pulls the trigger to kill McShane, he has a change of heart and decides to go to war with the ENTIRE ASSASSIN ORGANIZATION instead. More action continues with one of the longest drawn out fight scenes I have ever witnessed. Seriously, the ‘final’ fight scene was over 20 minutes long and multiple times Wick should have died but the people he was fighting just stop short of killing him and say “it’s an honor to fight you, John Wick” and allow him to get back up and the fight continues. It’s never a good thing for the audience to keep wondering “huh, why did he do that? Why didn’t they do this instead?” It’s weird and it constantly brought me out of the movie. In short, by the third act I was getting bored.

Action movies can be great, fantastic even however the recipe for an action movie can’t be 90% fighting. Too much violence numbs the audience that makes people not care what the overall outcome will be. By the 20 minute mark of Wick and assassin #284 fighting each other, I started to root for assassin #284 because I stopped caring about Wick as a character and just wanted the movie to end. Eventually Wick’s plot armor was too strong against assassin #284 and John wins the fight. John Wick rejoins McShane but a new character, the adjudicator (who works for the assassin organization) tells McShane that in order to keep the hotel, he needs to kill Wick. A brief pause occurs and then BANG BANG - McShane shoots Wick who falls 30 stories while hitting every single roof tile on the way down.

The movie ends with Wick being carried by a homeless man (who is also an assassin) and brought to the leader of the homeless assassin branch and tells Wick he wants to join the war again the assassin organization. This scene ends with one of the cheesiest lines ever uttered for an action movie - the ‘king’ of the homeless assassins leans over to Wick and says “Are you pissed, John? Good, I’m pissed too” - and roll credits!

Overall, I felt the movie is trying to ride the momentum from the previous two films but loses itself along the way and instead fills in the void with more bullets and fight scenes because ‘isn’t that what the audience paid for?’. I was originally drawn to the franchise because of the action and continued to watch for the mysterious world building of underground assassins however like Star Wars and Midi-chlorians, sometimes trying to over explain something ruins the mystery. The third John Wick movie gave the audience too much information about the assassin world to the point where some of the rules became contradictory and introduced several plot holes that will carry on to the fourth movie. That being said, the one thing I thought the movie did perfectly was the choreographed fight sequences. The first one with John fighting three assassins at a vintage knife shop was a great way to start the film and surprisingly added a good amount of humor to the movie. The Casablanca fight scene should be shown to all film study classes as an example of how to do an action scene right as well as the motorcycle chase scene. The only bummer is that for the final fight, it felt boring compared to everything else that happened in the film and didn’t live up to the hype.

Will I watch John Wick 4 when it comes out? Maybe? I’m still somewhat emotionally invested to learn more about the assassin world the franchise has built but the one thing I can’t stand is how thick John Wick’s plot armor is - the man can be stabbed in the shoulder, shot in the kidney and fall from a 30 story building all in the span of two days but still be breathing? Part of me will be interested to see what does it take to bring John Wick down but at the moment this franchise is starting to get old.

Grade: 7/10