John Wick 3: Parabellum - Movie Review

Starring Keanu Reeves, Halle Berry, Ian McShane, Laurence Fishburne, Anjelica Huston, Mark Dacascos, Asia Kate Dillon, Lance Reddick, Said Taghmaoui, Jerome Flynn and Randall Duk Kim.

Written by Derek Kolstad, Shay Hatten, Cris Collins & Marc Abrams.

Directed by Chad Stahelski.

★★★ 

John Wick 3 starts the minute John Wick 2 ends. John is on the run for breaking the rules by killing someone on consecrated grounds, and so he is now “excommunicado,” meaning no more protections or privileges in the assassin world, and there is now a high price on his head. And that’s what we get. We get a week of John fleeing from assassins while trying to figure a way to take the price off of his head.

The mythology of this world was hinted at in the first movie and greatly expanded in the second. The third one is therefore able to rely on what the viewer knows and doesn’t have to explain much. We get a touch more on his backstory and he meets up with “old friends” that we hadn’t heard of before. The action sequences are more non-stop than the first two movies. The wave of assassins after him feels relentless.

Keanu Reeves has the charm of one of the last old-school action heroes. Not the best actor, but he has presence, and everything he does is just indescribably cool. He’s surrounded by award winners to carry the dialogue scenes.

I will say this. They need to figure out how to get Carrie-Anne Moss to appear in John Wick 4.

John Wick 2 - Movie Review

Starring Keanu Reeves, Ian McShane, Common, Laurence Fishburne, Riccardo Scamarcio, Ruby Rose, John Leguizamo, Franco Nero, Lance Reddick, Claudia Gerini, Peter Stormare, Peter Serafinowicz and Thomas Sadowski.
Written by Derek Kolstad.
Directed by Chad Stahelski.

★★★

Maybe not as good as the first one, as it trades in an emotional hook (they killed his dog!) for non-stop action. But I still enjoyed it.

John Wick (Keanu Reeves), after getting revenge for the death of his dog, is ready to re-retire and enjoy a quiet life with his new dog. But his recent activities have caught the attention of an old acquaintence who holds his marker. In the world of underground assassins, they have a code of conduct, and one is that you must always honor a marker. A marker is a job you owe someone, and this acquiantence Santino (Riccardo Scamarcio) wants to Wick to assassinate his sister, a powerful crime boss.

This movie takes us further in this world and expands it. A good deal of it takes place in Rome, and it turns out they have their own Continental Hotel, where assassins can rest and refuel.

What I liked most about this movie was Common, as an assassin named Cassian. Cassian and John Wick are equals, and their fight scenes are evenly matched. It's the most effective Common has ever been in a movie.

(Side-note: For what it's worth, my wife was bored and said it was like watching someone else play a shoot-em-up video game for two hours.)

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THE HUNTSMAN: WINTER'S WAR (★★) Starring Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron, Jessica Chastain and Emily Blunt.

A Snow White sequel without Snow White turns out to be a bad idea. It feels like the same misguided thinking behind that James Franco in Oz movie. Why have three gorgeous actresses revolve around a less interesting male hero? It retains some of the elements that made the first movie enjoyable, but I really don't get why the producers thought this approach would work.

The Brothers Grimsby - DVD Review

Starring Sacha Baron Cohen, Mark Strong, Isla Fisher, Ian McShane, Rebel Wilson, Penelope Cruz, Gabourey Sidibe, Barkhad Abdi, Annabelle Wallis and Scott Adkins.
Written by Sacha Baron Cohen, Phil Johnston & Peter Baynham.
Directed by Louis Leterrier.

★½

I think this movie redefines the gross-out comedy. We've had vulgar comedies in the past, but this one's trying to out-crude them all.

Sacha Baron Cohen plays Nobby, a slobbish football fan living the trashiest of white-trash life. But he finds out his long-lost brother Sebastian (Mark Strong) is alive, and so he seeks to find him. Trouble is, Sebastian's an MI6 secret agent, and right when he's about to stop an assassin, Nobby arrives and screws it all up.

The two go on the run, and they globetrot trying to avoid MI6 - who now believe Sebastian's a traitor - while stopping the actual assassin. They uncover a conspiracy to wipe out a large portion of the human race. The plot and villain could be easily altered to be a standard James Bond plot. But here, the plot's a side thing. It's really an excuse to string together a series of gags involving body parts, body fluids, and the most repulsive elephant sex scene ever filmed.

Have I sold you?

Jack the Giant Slayer - DVD Review

Starring Nicholas Hoult, Ewan McGregor, Eleanor Tomlinson, Stanley Tucci, Ian McShane, Bill Nighy, Eddie Marsan and Ewan Bremner.
Directed by Bryan Singer.

★★

This movie is a prime example of an over-reliance on CGI to cover up problems with the actual story. The giants are fake, they look fake, and so there's no weight to them, cool as it may be to watch the humans run around on giant sets.

Hoult (Warm Bodies) plays Jack, the young man who eventually gets magic beans. A twist this time around is that the princess likes to travel in disguise among her people to get a taste of the real world (think Aladdin and Jasmine), but she is at Jack's when one of the beans accidentally gets wet and shoots into the sky.

There is some wonder building up to the meeting of the giants, but then when we do meet them, it's underwhelming.  They look like a cross between LOTR's cave trolls and ... the people of Polar Express.  If they're this humanoid, why not go for make-up and prosthetics and get some real-looking creatures to fight?  The 100% CGI-ness of the giants sucks out the wonder, and it sucked me out of the movie.

It's clearly made for children when it comes to the acting styles, but there's also enough heads getting bit off by giants that it earns its PG-13 rating.