John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019)

Parabellum’s real villain is a compliance officer in a nice coat. The Adjudicator spends the whole movie handing out punishments for paperwork reasons, and every time she shows up the energy drains out of the room. That’s the problem with chapter three: the world got so big it needs a legal department. The action is still nuts. A knife fight in an antiques shop, a horse used as a weapon, and Halle Berry’s two dogs, who are the real stars and deserve their own spinoff. Mark Dacascos plays Zero, a killer who is also John’s biggest fan, and he’s a blast. But the desert trip goes nowhere, and the finale is a glass-room fight that looks expensive and feels like a rerun. The box office didn’t mind: $328.3 million worldwide on a reported $75 million budget. A 6.4 because the fights got better and the reasons for them got worse. $14 says you start calling your boss’s emails a message from the High Table by Friday.

What works: Halle Berry’s dogs, the antiques shop knife fight, and Mark Dacascos having the time of his life as a fanboy assassin.

What doesn’t: The High Table bureaucracy eats the story, the desert detour goes nowhere, and the ending exists mostly to set up the next one.

Who it’s for: People who skip the talking parts on a rewatch and know exactly where every fight starts.