Wicked Cool

We’re finally getting a some of the big 2019 movies delivered, and John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (2019) was one of the ones we were most excited about. No need to say - it delivered.

It starts right after the end of JW2. John Wick and his pit bull puppy are one the run on a crowded New York street in the rain. They are about to become the target for every assassin in a world of assassins. John looks determined, but the dog looks like it doesn’t like getting wet. So he sends the dog back to the Continental and heads out on his own.

I’m goin to skip all the plot and stuff, and just mention a few things. Like how cool Anjelica Huston is as his mother figure - a Belarus Roma who runs a school for ballerinas and assassins. Laurence Fishburne is the king of the bums, and one of his subjects is Jason Mantzoukas. A new addition to the mythos is the Adjudicator, played by nonbinary Asia Kate Dillon. They act to enforce the rules of the High Table, who rule this assassins’ world.

Wick also gets some assistance from Halle Berry, an assassin who works with dogs, a pair of black mallinoises. This is one of Ms. Spenser’s favorite parts, because doggies. Of course, Wick also uses a horse to kick and kill several opponents in another scene, and rides them against a team on motorcycles. So, yeah, I guess he likes animals.

The big boss fight in the end is against Mark Dacascos, a fighting sushi chef (because I guess people know him from Iron Chef). His henchmen are Cecep Arif Rahman and Yayan Ruhian, from The Raid.  They act like the chance to fight him is a big honor, and there seems to be something going on in the fight - like maybe Reeves has trained with these guys, and they are buddies in real life. In fact, many of the fights show more than the choreography. They seem to show some of the personalities of not just the characters, but of the actors. Maybe even the personality of the fight itself.

Like the pit bull puppy - it looks tough but it acts kind of spoiled. It spends most of the final fight in a bunker on a couch with Ian McShane.