Chapter 2 ended with quite the hook, so needless to say excitement levels for Chapter 3 were high. Once again this movie picks off right where the last one left off; calling these "chapters" is completely appropriate.
While Chapter 2 felt different to me from the first movie, Chapter 3 feels very much like Chapter 2, only everything is taken further. The action is bigger and better. The supporting cast is more characterful. John's opponents are more dangerous. The criminal underworld is even more exaggerated. There's more dogs than ever before!
Now I've generally been of the opinion that "bigger and better" is not the best way to make a sequel, because even if you actually do succeed in making something "better" than it's predecessor, it will probably still have less impact because the novelty will have faded; it will likely feel like "more of the same". And it's true that Chapter 3 has lost some of the novelty factor of the original or even of Chapter 2.
However, I think I prefer it to Chapter 2 at least. While the action in Chapter 2 was fantastic, the action in Chapter 3 has an additional spark of creativity. Fight scenes, whether they be gunfights or close combat, are more interesting and complex, with more environmental interaction, and even a touch more humor.
Furthermore, Chapter 3 addresses (or at least tries to address) a complaint I had about Chapter 2: John's own motivations and thought processes seemed to lack the depth of the original. While not as deep as the first, at least in my view, Chapter 3 at least touches upon John's motivations, something that Chapter 2 never really seemed to bother with.
Another factor I think is that, because of how closely each film in the series feels follows the last, they feel more more episodic than most sequels. I suspect that this contributes to these movies feeling slightly less "same-y" than they otherwise might.
I really don't think there's much more that I need to say. I'm giving this an 8/10: it's just a great action movie that's very stylish and has a very well fleshed-out world.
#####SPOILER WARNING#####
I enjoyed the "playful" element of the weapon-museum fight scene. The shootout with the trained dogs was creative, brutal, and very well choreographed, really an action highlight of the series in my eyes. I loved the gunfight against the armoured squad, it really showed how good John is at overcoming obstacles. The martial arts battles at the end were great, though the setup felt a little awkward to me - the Table's assassins don't kill him when they have the chance and give him the chance to recover a bit, even though his killed a number of their comrades already? It's just a little bit... awkward.
As I touched upon in the previous review, I personally find the representation of the criminal underworld as being this supremely ordered and organized affair to be a little bit hard to swallow; it interferes with my suspension of disbelief I suppose. Chapter 3 takes this element even farther than Chapter 2, personally that was my biggest issue with Chapter 3. The Table is portrayed as being so large, so powerful, that it's practically omniscient - they knew that the Russians had helped John, they even knew exactly how many bullets were in the gun that the Bowery King gave him.
Sure, the first film gave us glimpses to a connected and somewhat organised criminal element, with the Continental being the most obvious element. But it all felt like just one local organisation, or possibly a collection of loosely associated local organisations, with some level of order. But now it feels more like all the crime in the world is rigidly controlled by one all-powerful entity. I'm just finding it hard to reconcile the structured, ordered, exaggerated world of Chapter 2 and 3 with the rougher, looser, more grounded world we saw in the original.
Well, being less grounded and more exaggerated is not a bad thing, it's more a matter of taste. I think I could enjoy it either way, it's probably just the transition that's bothering me; I think I like a certain degree of consistency in my fictional worlds. At the end of the day the change has given the franchise a direction to go that it might not otherwise have had, keeping it fresher than it might otherwise have been. And of course it provides a sense of escalation that is valuable for a follow-up.
This might be a bit of a strange comment, but I'm starting to suspect that John isn't actually very smart? I mean, no-one ever explicitly said that he was, but he gets built up so much as this terrifying boogey-man (to the point that he's actually described as the guy who kills the boogey-man) that it's just kind of implied that he's smart? I mean, don't you have to be kind of smart to be a good assassin? You just kind of expect him to be able to out-think his opponents as well as out-shoot them, right?
But I feel like he doesn't really make very intelligent decisions in the sequels (well, not in the original either, but it wasn't really an issue there he was operating on a purely emotional level). Perhaps the bigger problem is that, at least in the sequels, he doesn't really make decisions, he basically just does what people tell him to. He killed Gianna at Santino's behest, idiotically walked across the desert on foot exactly as he was told to rather than maybe figuring out a smarter way to get to the Elder (like maybe using a vehicle of some kind rather than, you know, WALKING ACROSS THE DESERT ON FOOT), he agrees to do the Elder's bidding, then immediately betrays him when Winstons suggests it, only to risk his life to protect Winston while the man relaxes in a bunker.
Yes, there's certainly times when he plans his next step on his own, but these are only when there's no-one there to tell him what to do. He only takes the initiative AFTER following directions gets him into a bad spot, but then he goes ahead and follows directions again as soon as someone shows up who's willing to give them. He never refuses to follow a path that someone else lays out for him (the exception of course is when someone wants him to die).
I don't exactly want to say that it's lazy writing, but it is very convenient for the plot and is focused more on setting up the next scene than on exploring John as a character. Which is a bit of a shame since I still think there was a spark of brilliance in the character development we saw in the first movie, but not since.
So why did the Zero and his men attack John after the Elder had pardoned him? I mean, I assume the Elder called off the hit; it would be kind of stupid to order someone to do something while the rest of your organisation is trying to stop them. I mean, the Adjucator seemed to know about John's mission, and Zero was working for the Adjucator, so... eh, whatever. The motorcycle scene was pretty cool after all.
