John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum

RATING: B

I've never been able to fully appreciate the first two John Wick movies as much as the average viewer. The first one felt too much like just a revenge shoot-em-up flick, albeit with some humorous twists and a dead dog instead of a dead wife/family. But that kind of thing just doesn't really interest me. The second one tried to expand on its predecessor, but aside from some admittedly pretty awesome hand-to-hand fights, it felt too much like more of the same--plus a couple of bizarre plot contrivances. And the series has never been nearly interested enough in the morality or soul of its protagonist--it's occasionally there, and perhaps more so than other films in this genre. But they're generally more interested in seeing how high of a body count Wick can rack up.

Still, the series has not been without its appeal. Chad Stahleski is superb at directing action scenes--the filming and editing is about as good as you'll ever see in the genre. And there's often a fair amount of humor from Wick's enemies discussing just how good of an assassin he is, and just how screwed they are as a result. So they've certainly been watchable, just nothing overall outstanding to me besides the fight choreography.

Anyway, when we last left super-assassin John Wick, he'd put himself into the unfortunate position of being excommunicated from the shadowy assassin underworld -- and thus had a *huge* price on his head, one that literally everyone else in this underworld was willing to take advantage of. Thus ensues two hours of killing.

But you know what? I enjoyed myself a lot more with this installment than I did the prior two. For one thing, this isn't a kill-em-all revenge flick, nor is it a convoluted follow-up which doesn't break enough new territory for our protagonist. Here, Wick is just trying to survive in a world where--at the moment--basically everyone wants to kill him. Of course, this is due to his actions at the end of Part 2, but unlike that chapter, this one emphasizes a bit more the whole "actions have consequences" thing. And a big part of this is the questions of "what is he living for," and "what sort of man does he want to die as?"

Granted, this stuff may not be at the forefront of the picture, but just bringing in more of this kind of substance really does make a lot of difference. Chapter 2 missed a lot of good opportunities for that, but in hindsight, I feel like they were just trying to set up this movie. And the result is... surprisingly good.

Somehow I haven't even really talked about the action yet. They hardly waste any time jumping into matters. In this movie, we see John Wick fight somebody with a book, engage ninjas with excessive use of throwing knives, and take on motorcycle drivers with knives while riding a horse. And that's just in the first 30 minutes!

But really, so much of the action in this thing is actually quite fun to watch. For one thing, instead of just a ton of headshots with the occasional knife/hand-to-hand combat, the combat in this movie is a lot more diversified. They give us a lot more various types of fights, and with one exception, none of them feel like they drag on.

What also helps is the atmosphere created by the movie--whether it's the wonderfully foreboding soundtrack, or the lighting of New York at night, or the screensaver-color-heavy lounge used as a battle ground near the end, the setting for so much of this is so well done. Chad Stahleski has always directed these movies well, but this is definitely his best job yet.

The final act is also easily the best in this series yet as well. Here, we get to watch John Wick fight two ninjas and then their master afterwards--for *20-25 straight minutes in total.* You'd think it would drag going on for that long, but it really doesn't. It's so frenetically paced and well choreographed it's difficult to not enjoy. This is probably the highlight fight and set piece of the movie.

After all these ways in which this movie improves over its predecessors, one might wonder what is actually wrong with it. Well, not really a grand deal. A few times the violence gets a bit gratuitous even by this franchise's standards. Oddly, Halle Berry's character is billed in marketing and in the cast as a major character, but she disappears midway through and is never seen again--kind of a waste. And a couple of the detours that are taken along the journey are a bit uninteresting. And in some ways, this movie still does kind of sit in the shadow of its predecessors--which, as I've demonstrated, aren't as appealing to me as to the average viewer. But hey, at least they improved on this one.

So ultimately, this is definitely the best film in the series thus far. In some ways, it may still be just a bit of a killing gallery movie, but with the setting behind it being different this time and there actually being a bit more substance to it this time, it's much closer to being the movie this series should have given us all along. Fans of this type of movie will have an absolute field day. Whether they can keep up this momentum and style for Chapter 4 remains to be seen.

Men in Black: International

RATING: C+

Here's another 2019 movie franchise follow-up that didn't necessarily need to happen: a Men in Black "spin-off," of sorts. While I wouldn't necessarily have been completely opposed to another MIB movie with Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, apparently they're too expensive now (or Smith is, at least--he sat out Independence Day 2 for the same reason). So instead we end up taking the focus to the British branch of MIB, where this time our leads are... Thor and Valkyrie from Thor: Ragnarok.

Despite the fact that this is still kind of an attempted cash grab (which failed), it's not a concept without promise. Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson leading the way, who already have good chemistry with each other, at the London division of MIB, with Liam Neeson added in? Surely they couldn't screw that up, right?

Well, they don't necessarily screw it up--but it still does fall short of its potential. Much of the problems revolve around some of the same issues from prior movies. Here's the thing about MIB movies: you probably barely remember the actual plots or bad guys from any of them. The central conflict has never been something that stood out about these movies (except *maybe* the third one). It was always the setting and the two juggernaut leads riffing off each other that worked, as well as some of the humor (though that could be hit-or-miss too at times).

That's all more or less par for the course here. This time, we're dealing with a new alien species called the Hive that could destroy the world. Agent H (Hemsworth) and High T (Neeson) stopped them years ago, but they may be coming back--if the appearance of two powerful energy beings with Hive mutations is any indication. And guess what? There's another ultimate weapon in the equation. Oh yeah, and there may be a mole in the MIB organization as well--that's something new, I guess.

The final result is one that isn't always comprehensible but is still entertaining at times. There's a couple good action scenes--the highlight is probably the extended sequence on Rebecca Ferguson's arms dealer island. There's some funny moments here and there as well. And Hemsworth and Thompson do play well off each other, even if they could've been given better material to work with. Liam Neeson's presence is always welcome as well.

Aside from the occasionally head-scratching plot, there's nothing inherently bad about this--certainly nothing as bad as Men in Black 2's lowest points (even with a few eye-rolling lines in the script). The issue is that there's not much to write home about either. The movie tries to stand out in its franchise, but at its core it's still generally the same old Men in Black with different leads. And all things considered... that's not a bad thing, but that's not good enough to make it stand out either.

Still, it's a generally harmless pastime of a movie that one might be okay with if they've liked the previous movies as a whole. It's not going to blow anyone away and many will probably be wishing that Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones were still here. And they do have a point. This isn't really a movie that needed to exist. But it's not the worst the franchise has to offer either.