Something Wick This Way Comes

Started re-watching 2 last night - I think my favorite bit is when Keanu arrives in Rome and the proprietor of the local Continental asks him if he's there to kill the Pope. When the answer (after a long pause) is no, the guy smiles and says "OK then - enjoy your stay" and hands him his room key. Cracked me up in the theater; still funny now.

All of the septuagenarians in my gf's family are psyched to see 3 this weekend, q: will I need to see 2 first in order to follow the intricacies of plot

the proprietor of the local Continental asks him if he's there to kill the Pope

yeah this was genuinely hilarious

also just noticed that JW2 and JW3 feature, respectively, a genderfluid and non-binary primary cast member, which is neat!

if this is romcom, it forgot to be rom or com

if this is a musical, it forgot to have songs

if this is documentary, it forgot to be a record of real-life events captured contemporaneously

neither of these movies are satire my god

i do like to think of them as a horror movie franchise from a retired horror movie monster's perspective

(Only barely tangentially related but have you seen Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil, Brad?)

as a teen beach party movie starring frankie avalon and annette funicello, it’s a real failure iirc

TBF and IMO, the failing of most films is that they are not teen beach party movies starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello.

well, yeah

ol, yes see 2

fwiw i didn't think the first one was satire. just crap.

ol, yes see 2

How about the first one, is that necessary for the other two? I think the only way I could watch this with my partner would be to skip the puppy murder.

look

i cannot in any faith recommend anyone to not see john wick

insofar as plot matters youd have to seem em all in order but happily.....prob plot is a nice-to-have in these movies

****SPOILERS***
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John Wick 3 as the 2016 election/Pro-Bernie propaganda

--The high table is the democratic party, obsessed with rules and norms to their own detriment
--The adjudicator is Hillary, a seasoned professional fighting a broken system just trying to keep everything normal.
--John Wick is Bernie Sanders, the rogue veteran, a little old but still a scrapper. He's already got the young fighters obsessed with him (Zero), but has to win over older voters who are set in their ways/routines (Anjelica Huston) and the women who still claim fealty to the high table (Halle Berry)
--Visiting Berrada was the DNC kneecapping him in the primaries
--Winston is Trump, whose only concern is himself and maintaining status/money/power and his HOTEL
--Lawrence Fishburne and his crew are the mobilized lower class electorate who is going to help Wick and Bernie rise to victory in Part 4 (2020)

wheres biden

sorry, meant to post that to the twin peaks thread with a fuller theory that it itself is a 2020 allegory

This was so violent it was almost hallucinogenic at times.

The least of the three but only really cause the last 10 minutes is a bit enh

This was so violent it was almost hallucinogenic at times.

seeing this tomorrow at 10:00. ANTE MERIDIEM!!

also i would posit that the excessive world-building in this one is Bad -- the first is the best because it's just about a retired assassin going after a spoiled brat for killing his dog

Debating whether or not I'll see this in the theater. All I know is, after having one guy dispatch basically dozens if not hundreds of highly skilled assassins in the previous two movies, what idiot assassin would try to take him on in John Wick 3?

quite a few it turns out

(spoiler a lot of people try to kill john wick)

It's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy in this ridiculous world. They will never run out of assassins because apparently half the world is an assassin.

spoiler-light, incomplete list of things I greatly enjoyed in this one, in no order

dogs
horses
knife museum
Halle Berry
Mark Dacascos
Lance Reddick
all that glass
"I get it"

One half of the couple behind me hit her partner with her purse and walked out after Wick stabbed that guy slowly in the eye

alas, twas not meant to be

just a story about two people who love their doggos

spoiler-light, incomplete list of things I greatly enjoyed in this one, in no order

dogs
horses
knife museum
Halle Berry
Mark Dacascos
Lance Reddick
all that glass
"I get it"

although how he met his end was eeeeegh

I had to look up who that was, but yeah, that was a hell of a first action sequence. Actually, the movie suffered a bit for being frontloaded with a few of its standout sequences.

Mr. Wick needs to adjust his library etiquette, though.

please never reshelve your books at the library! even if you didn't check it out, the desk still needs it! why? well i'll tell ya in this thread!

— gloombot.exe (@lesbianchaos) April 20, 2019

I’m pretty sure this movie is satire and was gonna make a joke about it being Starship Troopers with a dog (“Starship Poopers”) but I googled it and that was already a Simpsons joke and an old one too

loved this and the ending action was very close to doing the Keanu finds new strength, gestures with hand bit but he rallied without obvious posing

appreciate they did no obvious “this other guy loves death, John Wick wants life” dialogue

I don’t think anything is satire as much as it is a continuous commentary and homage to convention and predecessors! A lot of the martial arts sequences referenced were humorous or ott and they play well to that

Many thoughts but mostly how much I was not expecting Kyary Pamyu Pamyu to show up on the soundtrack. Almost like they literally googled 'ninja music' and this was the first thing that showed up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teMdjJ3w9iM&feature=youtu.be

other than that, I'm just very, very, very glad that this franchise and Keanu Reeves found each other.

spoiler-light, incomplete list of things I greatly enjoyed in this one, in no order

dogs
horses
knife museum
Halle Berry
Mark Dacascos
Lance Reddick
all that glass
"I get it"

otm

also in this movie, John Wick utters a couple of words in Bahasa, instantly killing two guys... and the entire Bahasa-speaking audience I was with. (Hey guys, if you haven't seen The Raid, you should!)

I only just realized who Dacascos is and tbh I love that he was cast as the lead baddie in a huge movie, and that he's even older than Keanu (and similarly ageless)

and yeah seeing the Raid guys in this was a treat as well

Re-posting my Kyary link since it didn't work the first time:

https://youtu.be/teMdjJ3w9iM

The least of the three but only really cause the last 10 minutes is a bit enh

― Simon H., Saturday, May 18, 2019 3:29 AM

I thought this by the best of three by miles and wonder how they will try to top it.

The previous two really don't prepare you for how violent this is.

Halle Berry and her dogs were great.

Actually wasn't too bothered about seeing it but my brother offered to take me to cinema and I'm really glad I went. Will definitely be there for the next film.

Wonder how far this series will go and will we get John Wick in space. How far will he have to travel?

Funny how a guy is clearly killed in the train station and nobody cares. Supports the feeling of this being a cartoon world where assassins could be everywhere.

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2019/05/17/geof-darrow-drew-a-john-wick-3-poster-so-violent-it-can-never-be-seen/

Wonder how far this series will go and will we get John Wick in space

We wondered aloud about how in the hell they could ever "top" this, and this very idea was raised.

release the Geoff Darrow poster, you cowards!

Saw it today

I love the opening, him going from neon times square to ye olde pistol/gun/knife emporium to fkn horse stables ...i love how much they love juxtaposing modern vs antique so much

keanu on horseback is everything bcs he can actually ride (of course he can he can do everything)

motorbike swordfight was dope af. do we know if that was keanu’s bike brand? i meant to look that up.

halle berry & her rad dogs were RAD AS FUCK those dogs flying through the air was awesome, such amazing trainers they must have
angry halle is good halle.

the GLASS room fascinated me, because of the different strengths. it’s kinda genius in the design, creating tension just from not knowing when/if it will shatter & when

i still love first movie the best for sheer simplicity of plot & economy of dialogue but they could make 50 of these, i’ll love em all if Keanu keeps doing his thing

Yup! Plot’s not as trim as the first, obviously, but I think the action scenes were the best of the series

Chow Yun Fat is in that Yen directed one, I hear? It'll probably suck but man would I be happy to see that guy again.

giving Donnie Yen a movie in any franchise sounds like a fun idea

I appreciate how this review (from one of the site's most, how to put it, slavering fanboy types in general) spends almost its entirety backing into an apologia for liking something because it's brainless/brilliant action trash in that I imagined unperson shouting in response "YOU DON'T HAVE TO APOLOGIZE FOR THAT."

flagging you for linking to an article by that individual

A risk I ran, granted.

I kid, but his writing definitely has not changed much

One thing that struck me about Peter Bradshaw's review in The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/jun/04/ballerina-review-ana-de-armas-racks-up-the-kills-as-she-pirouettes-into-john-wick-spin-off

Is that it doesn't read as if the author has actually seen the film. It reads as if it was synthesised from a plot summary and a couple of trailers. The first paragraph tells us that it's a John Wick spin-off. The second has some unfunny non-jokes and a suggestion that the author has seen some of the publicity material. The third paragraph is a plot summary, except it doesn't even describe the plot, it just describes the basic scenario. The fourth wraps things up.

It's just curiously empty. But Bradshaw presumably had enough time to see the film, and would have been invited to a press screening or at least given a digital copy. He would have much less pressure to synthesise the review from publicity materials, and yet that's how it reads. If he was trying to make a satirical point about the film's lack of substance it doesn't come across.

I mean, there are essentially only three sentences about acting, all about the lead actor ("(de Armas) proves again she can do action", a bit about switching magazines, "de Armas mixes things up and she is a smart screen presence"). Are any of the other actors effective? No idea. Are there any good lines? No idea. What is the actual plot? Dunno. Is the film visually inventive? I can't tell.

I realise film reviews aren't The Guardian's core competency, but I could have generated a more entertaining, more thorough review myself solely from re-watching the Cuba sequence in No Time to Die and reading Ballerina's TVTropes page. If anyone who works for The Guardian is reading this, I'm prepared to undercut Peter Bradshaw by £10p/a. You'd get better content, more of it, and you'd save £10 a year, for which you could buy a really nice large cod to go with your chips. Think it over.

I didn’t click on Ned’s link but “the-incredible-action-in-ballerina-masks-how-dumb-the-rest-of-it-is-2000607943” — o rly for a film where Chad Stahelski allegedly came in and reshot all of the action sequences after Len Wiseman turned in his cut?

Roffle.

i realize some of its timing & whatever but having Wiseman direct it in the first place just seemed doomed to me, like even on paper I dont want to see it!

I appreciate how Stahelski himself was also "The Continental? Fuck that."

https://gizmodo.com/like-us-the-director-of-john-wick-didnt-love-the-continental-2000611816

<3

“Bernardo Bertucci or Andrei Tchaikovsky”

Perhaps he's AI

so glad I didnt waste my time on the The Continental

I'm distressed to find out that I've seen both of Len Wiseman's previous non-Underworld films. I mean, a plane journey was involved in both cases..

All of this reads much funnier and better when I substitute Frederick Wiseman for Len Wiseman. Better movies too

can confirm recommendation way upthread - SISU is great (and currently streaming on Peacock)

very much a spiritual relative of Wick, on a much smaller, far more pared-down scale

Finally caught up with Ballerina. It's better than I expected, with some clever fight choreography and a few little jokes that made me chuckle, but it's nowhere near as weirdly compelling as the other Wick movies. Those Wick movies are, in a sense, bulletproof, in that they deliver on the first movie's bizarre proof of concept. This one is somehow even less sensical and more silly, with extra dumb mythology, a boilerplate villain turn from Gabriel Byrne, and Ana de Armas never quite selling the physicality that way Keanu does. Still, its got de Armas jamming a grenade into some goon's mouth and then slamming a steel door into his face to trap him and protect her, an utterly ridiculous flamethrower fight and more thrown heavy things hitting heads than a Tom & Jerry cartoon.

"Sisu" is like if you found a 25-year old raised on "Wick," "Rambo" and "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," gave him (it's a him) a few million dollars and then reminded him that not only does slow motion make badass stuff look even more badass, it helps in a pinch if your runtime falls a bit short. Curious how much more ridiculous and ott the sequel can get.

The answer to your end question is yes, in the best way.

Boy, you weren't kidding. The second one isn't as good as the first, but it is indeed even more ott and ridiculous. A couple of gags gave me a good laugh.