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I liked this more than the 2nd but after having a few hours to digest I do agree with a lot of the minor criticisms in the thread.
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May 20, 2019 05:15
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Doc Walrus posted:Chapter 3 was awesome and those dogs were some very, very good boys. There was no reason for it to be a two and a half hour movie. The Raid 2 was a two and a half hour action movie, and it deserved to be that long. There was a ton of poo poo that could have been cut from this.(COMPREHENSIVE SPOILERS SPANNING ENTIRE MOVIE) The library fight, The second wave of bullet proof High Table Troopers, and the glass hallway fight with the ninjas who weren't Yayan Ruhian and Cecep Arif Rahman weren't helping the movie at all. That time could have been better spent developing who the hell the bald ninja master is and maybe another Winston scene hinting at where things are going. you're going to have to back up your claim that the book kill and getting smashed through ten display cases in a single shot weren't necessary
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May 20, 2019 05:19
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Venuz Patrol posted:you're going to have to back up your claim that the book kill and getting smashed through ten display cases in a single shot weren't necessary The book kill itself was nice but the whole fight scene before it was essentially John punching a tall, confused idiot over and over while dragging him around a library. It was a bad fight with a good ending. Also the "They just keep kicking him through display cases" gag was pretty good, but it took FOREVER to get through and then John has to go through the chore of murdering these two nobodies so he can move on to fight The Raid Duo. Both the library and display case fights were bad fights that also had a good part to them.
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May 20, 2019 05:36
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Blast Fantasto posted:Yeah Mark Dacascos is awesome in this. Hard to believe he's 55. Him and the ninjas absolutely stole the show. Arglebargle III posted:I wanted this to be better than 2 but it wasn't. I wouldn't cut the library fight, killing a guy with a book was a great addition. The whole Morocco and "the Elder" stuff was stupid and could have been cut without making any difference to the story. Going to see the Elder doesn't accomplish anything since it doesn't remove the hit on Wick and we never really believe he's going to go kill the only acquaintance he has left.. It's 40 minutes that don't need to be in the movie and is the most egregious about nonsense world-building as well. I gotta disagree with you there. The elder sequence is a reminder that the only way out is under the approval of the table, and it makes Winston, the only thing like a friend he has, turning on him that much more bitter. He helped Winston fin another way, possibly free of the table, and he ran back to them with open arms. It sets up that the high table ruins and corrupts everything, and that no one is able to make real choices while its there
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May 20, 2019 05:38
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Origami Dali posted:It's a vintage 60's chess set designed by Austin Cox for ALCOA aluminum. It ain't cheap. deathbagel posted:Thanks for this! I had that exact set when I was a kid, it was my dad's and I got it when he died. No clue how he managed to have it, he was an alcoholic who couldn't hold down a job and drank himself to death, but it was by far the nicest thing he owned. I wish they hand't let me have it when I was a kid, because I of course destroyed it, which makes me sad now that I'm old and would love to have it. I'd never seen another set like that one until I saw it last night while watching this movie. Honestly I'd forgotten about it. I don't think it's quite exactly that set- I'd need to see the scene again, but the pieces are narrower and longer, I believe, with some other shape differences.
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May 20, 2019 05:39
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loving loved this except the the entire middle east act, since 1) the battle right after they shoot the coinmaker while super tight just felt like they were in a obvious closed set and people were just popping out of random locations to get shot and it kinda took me out of the movie 2) pointless since he immediately goes against his word and doesn't kill Winston, so he cut off his finger for no reason other than to setup him getting his ring back in JW4 So to sum up, JW1 is still the king, but this was good and much much better than 2.
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May 20, 2019 05:54
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Not sure I understand the reading that Winston betrays John at the end when his conversation with the Adjudicator in the lobby afterwards makes it pretty obvious he intentionally kept him alive. Still dumb he survived that fall and that the Bowery King survived his execution. I’m sure they’re going for some back from the dead/underworld imagery here but I dunno, there’s probably a less clumsy way to do it.
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May 20, 2019 07:27
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Doc Walrus posted:The book kill itself was nice but the whole fight scene before it was essentially John punching a tall, confused idiot over and over while dragging him around a library. It was a bad fight with a good ending. Also the "They just keep kicking him through display cases" gag was pretty good, but it took FOREVER to get through and then John has to go through the chore of murdering these two nobodies so he can move on to fight The Raid Duo. Both the library and display case fights were bad fights that also had a good part to them. [Library fight] I think this scene gives us three things (other than the fight itself, of course): (1) We get our introductory fight for the movie. A sort of "yeah, he's still really good at fighting." (2) It shows that every drat idiot is out to get him. We've had a bunch of people looking at him, but since he's such a legendary assassin, people could still be willing to give him a clear path. Boban lets us know that no, it really is everyone after him. (3) I think this is the important one: it shows people cheating the rules. Over the first two movies, the rules have been sacrosanct. The only two times they've been broken have been a big deal: Perkins is immediately executed, and Keanu is excommunicated. Boban cheating the rules here shows that the rules aren't so ironclad, which opens the space for a lot of what happens in the movie.
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May 20, 2019 08:59
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I’m really surprised people like the John Wick super fan bad guy. I like the actor but felt it the comedy was a downgrade from Common, Ruby Rose, and Viggo.
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May 20, 2019 11:49
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Violator posted:I’m really surprised people like the John Wick super fan bad guy. I like the actor but felt it the comedy was a downgrade from Common, Ruby Rose, and Viggo. He was sold as a threat a lot better than Ruby and Viggo. Common was his own beast, but I like the idea of a guy who thinks of himself as John's peer, only to discover he isn't. I rewatched the first recently and, with the sequels, it casts Viggo in a slightly different sight. From the moment Aurelio tells him why he hit Iosef, Viggo knows he's hosed. He goes through the motions, sending guys after John and laying a trap for him, but he know it's all pointless and this is the Faustian price for asking for John's help.
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May 20, 2019 11:54
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Pirate Jet posted:and that the Bowery King survived his execution. I may be forgetting something here but remind me why it was supposed to be an 'execution' as opposed to just a punishment. Anjelica Huston's character had all her men killed but was only punished for her helping of Wick, not executed.
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May 20, 2019 13:21
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Olympic Mathlete posted:I may be forgetting something here but remind me why it was supposed to be an 'execution' as opposed to just a punishment. Anjelica Huston's character had all her men killed but was only punished for her helping of Wick, not executed. I certainly took it as implied that it was an execution. He was told he had a week to get his affairs in order and find a successor as King, which sounded to my ear like they were euphemistically telling him they were planning execution. Then as they arrive he tells the pigeon, "long live the King, the King is dead." Lastly, after he receives his "seven cuts" he falls over and isn't seen again (until the very end).
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May 20, 2019 13:27
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Hand Knit posted:I certainly took it as implied that it was an execution. He was told he had a week to get his affairs in order and find a successor as King, which sounded to my ear like they were euphemistically telling him they were planning execution. Then as they arrive he tells the pigeon, "long live the King, the King is dead." Lastly, after he receives his "seven cuts" he falls over and isn't seen again (until the very end). And then at the end I think he says something like "That's right, I survived. I'm surprised too."
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May 20, 2019 15:10
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Hand Knit posted:[Library fight] The main reason I think the library fight is 100% necessary and one of the best scenes of the movie is because it immediately tops the opening scene from JW2(where in hindsight he was clearly holding back) in terms of sheer brutality and serves notice to the audience that John is deadlier than even the first two movies let on. I mean, he loving obliterates that guy. I had a bunch of people in my theater that were really taken aback by the way Wick just goes to town on the guy's face and neck and there was audible gasps and then stunned silence. Basebf555 fucked around with this message at 15:44 on May 20, 2019 |
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May 20, 2019 15:27
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I think my favourite little moment of the film was the russians bouncers asking for John's belt before meeting the matriarch, considering how much work he puts on with the belt, they were on the right to be cautious.
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May 20, 2019 15:34
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Honest Thief posted:I think my favourite little moment of the film was the russians bouncers asking for John's belt before meeting the matriarch, considering how much work he puts on with the belt, they were on the right to be cautious. And then he uses it to help turn the tide in the fight towards the end of the movie.
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May 20, 2019 15:39
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In addition to Hand Knit's post, the library fight also helps establish the omnipresent threat. I find libraries in movies are often secular sanctuaries and because the fight happens so early at the beginning of the movie it sold the notion that nowhere is safe for John (or Jonathan as nearly every character in Parabellum prefers to call him).
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May 20, 2019 15:44
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Basebf555 posted:And then he uses it to help turn the tide in the fight towards the end of the movie. Chekov's Belt
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May 20, 2019 15:44
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Basebf555 posted:Having thought about it, portraying Ruhian and Rahman as like honorable fighters who really are just excited to be able to fight Wick was a pretty clever choice because it allows them to slow their moves down a bit and give Keanu some breaks but with an established in-universe reason for why they'd do that. Yeah, I really enjoyed that the pair of them didn't have any hard feelings towards him or want him dead or anything, they just wanted to see how they stack up. It added to how goofy and weird the whole world in the film is. Also lol at how the film goes from Hitman to Assassin's Creed for a moment. For a moment I thought he was going to get a hidden blade even to reinforce the whole theme of choosing between being a man or a tool/servant too.  Speaking of which Lance Reddick better end up siding with Wick but I'm p sure he's going to go down with Winston if he actually did betray John. I guess in hindsight probably not but the dialogue at the end was ambiguous and with how they framed him during the fights it seems like he was pretty earnest about trying to get back in. RBA Starblade fucked around with this message at 15:59 on May 20, 2019 |
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May 20, 2019 15:46
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Snowman_McK posted:I rewatched the first recently and, with the sequels, it casts Viggo in a slightly different sight. From the moment Aurelio tells him why he hit Iosef, Viggo knows he's hosed. He goes through the motions, sending guys after John and laying a trap for him, but he know it's all pointless and this is the Faustian price for asking for John's help. I rewatched 1 and 2 the day of 3’s release, and I think this entire franchise is successful because of the phone call between Viggo and John Leguizamo. The “Oh.” after John explains why he struck Iosef is one of the most succinct and successful character building moments I can think of. That 30 second exchange by secondary characters tells you everything you need to know about Wick. It reminds me of the legend building in Desperado, but one backed by the reality of the character instead of using it as a myth to scare bad guys.
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May 20, 2019 16:29
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Pretty sure Winston is going to have his cake and eat it too. He didn’t kill Wick when he could, shot him at his bulletproof suit rather than in the head and let him go over the edge to give him a chance to survive and escape but managed to go back to the High Table’s okay and it shows how much power they have. It’s a betrayal for his own benefit but it can be seen another way. Especially if he still helps Wick.
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May 20, 2019 16:31
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Violator posted:I rewatched 1 and 2 the day of 3’s release, and I think this entire franchise is successful because of the phone call between Viggo and John Leguizamo. The “Oh.” after John explains why he struck Iosef is one of the most succinct and successful character building moments I can think of. That 30 second exchange by secondary characters tells you everything you need to know about Wick. It reminds me of the legend building in Desperado, but one backed by the reality of the character instead of using it as a myth to scare bad guys. That scene really is genius and you're right, I fell in love with the movie at that exact moment because it's a situation we've seen in plenty of movies before. You expect Viggo to puff out his chest and say "I don't care who it was, you touch my son you pay the price!" or something along those lines. The weak "Oh" as if he's almost speechless and paralyzed by fear just at the mention of Wick's name was absolutely perfect.
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May 20, 2019 16:35
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https://twitter.com/Nina_Metz/status/1130494717253378048?s=20
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May 20, 2019 17:00
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This movie was amazing in Dolby.
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May 20, 2019 17:22
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It didn't even occur to me that the Adjudicator was nonbinary. But I guess nobody used a pronoun to describe them, so that's fair. Robin Lord Taylor also plays some sort of gender non-conforming role, so it's clearly something they're consciously doing in the world of the film and it's rad as hell. I find that super interesting, because on its surface, these movies seem to be aiming at the Taken or Transporter audience. Really excessive, graphic, hard-R action films playing out masculine power fantasies...basically, the kind of poo poo that you'd think would skew male and skew pretty far right. The marketing for the first one definitely felt like this to me; I didn't even want to see it until someone better explained what the movie was. Which is a crazy murder ballet inside a kaleidoscope and not Liam Neeson murdering foreigners on shakycam. At this point, John Wick feels more like action art film to me, like some weird cross of Seijun Suzuki and Italian giallo. The text is more or less an exploitation film, but rendered so artistically and affectionately. It's not surprising that they'd also be conscious and respectful about representation. They're doing something with these movies. It's loving great.
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May 20, 2019 19:58
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I think my favorite character is the one computer janitor sending out the deconsecration notice just because a russian mobster goon with eyeshadow under one eye only is hilarious to me He's probably also killed like thirty people probably
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May 20, 2019 20:02
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Sophia was a conscious choice to show that women can be John Wick, too. She looked great doing it. I really respect that they're trying to move the action beyond CQC->headshot, which was very good in the first one and started getting a bit stale in the second. This was the weakest of the John Wick films by a smidge, IMO, but it was very enjoyable and I didn't really have a huge problem with it. I hope they wrap up the franchise in the next couple of movies, since the obvious direction of the series is "John Wick is an unstoppable violence spirit who pulls down the corrupt edifices that harm the lower classes" and you can only deal with so many layers of corrupt opulence and byzantine bureaucracy before it becomes parody. Megaman's Jockstrap fucked around with this message at 22:34 on May 20, 2019 |
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May 20, 2019 20:02
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Reeves and Stahelski met on the set of The Matrix, a movie by two trans women that’s one big long metaphor for being trans (early drafts even had Neo change gender when entering the Matrix) so it makes sense they’d be inclusive like that. I think Ruby Rose is non-binary as well and they didn’t codify them as one gender in specific in 2. Of all the filmmaking teams to make a big comeback I’m pretty glad this is the one that did.
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May 20, 2019 20:05
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Xealot posted:At this point, John Wick feels more like action art film to me, like some weird cross of Seijun Suzuki and Italian giallo. The text is more or less an exploitation film, but rendered so artistically and affectionately. It's not surprising that they'd also be conscious and respectful about representation. They're doing something with these movies. It's loving great. Absolutely the JW films take much more from Suzuki and Melville than the typical American action movie. I did a Letterboxd list of movies to watch before John Wick 3 and Tokyo Drifter, Le Samourai, and Le Cercle Rouge were all on it. I mean, John Wick has a specific Le Cercle Rouge call out so it's not all that subtle.
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May 20, 2019 20:08
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Huh, I thought the Adjudicator was coded androgynous/non-binary to show that they had moved beyond such things, as an actual kind of dehumanization to show that they were nothing more than the will of the High Table. I read it as a sort of sublimation of identity instead of an assertion of one. I can see how it can be read as the opposite tho; that's very interesting.
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May 20, 2019 20:09
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Huh, I thought the Adjudicator was coded androgynous/non-binary to show that they had moved beyond such things, as an actual kind of dehumanization to show that they were nothing more than the will of the High Table. I read it as a sort of sublimation of identity instead of an assertion of one. I can see how it can be read as the opposite tho; that's very interesting. That's an interesting point. I'll be honest that I read the character as a queer woman rather than specifically non-binary, but that doesn't change my interpretation: the High Table is so powerful that masculine ego or masculine intimidation are irrelevant. They're not the mob, so they don't need some hulking dude to be their enforcer...their reputation is so formidable, that this person who might be marginalized or disrespected in another context 100% won't be in this one. The Adjudicator is not intimidated or vulnerable, because nobody would dare gently caress with them because of who they represent.
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May 20, 2019 20:43
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Oooh I like that interpretation as well.
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May 20, 2019 21:05
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In the scene where Wick refused to kill Winston, I kept expecting the Adjudicator to betray some bit of fear that maybe they were about to kill her(it is just the three of them up there, after all), but nope. She was uber-confident and really at no point did she not have the upper hand. Great character and I loved that Winston and Wick never lose respect for her position even as they're refusing to bend the knee.
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May 20, 2019 21:08
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Pretty much all of the supporting cast in the John Wick franchise are top-tier, even the one-off characters. Like I wanted to know more about the hub guy who executed the Adjudicator's order near the end of the movie, and he was on the screen for all of 20 seconds!
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May 20, 2019 21:44
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Pretty much all of the supporting cast in the John Wick franchise are top-tier, even the one-off characters. Like I wanted to know more about the hub guy who executed the Adjudicator's order near the end of the movie, and he was on the screen for all of 20 seconds! Oswald Cobblepot was temping
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May 20, 2019 22:30
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Just got this message from the John Wick text thing You have served. You will be of service. John Wick: Chapter 4 is coming - May 21, 2021. 
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May 20, 2019 23:34
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I guess that's a standard turnaround but it seems very quick.
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May 20, 2019 23:36
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:I guess that's a standard turnaround but it seems very quick. I imagine pre-production on 4 has already started, they knew all along they were doing it.
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May 20, 2019 23:39
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:I guess that's a standard turnaround but it seems very quick.
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May 20, 2019 23:40
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I feel like the choreography in this one became too loose and wasn't as tightly controlled as the previous films. Too many instances where there is a pause that's just too long as one character is waiting for their opponent to attack again. The most glaring example for me was when John gets kicked through the crystal skull cases and each time he gets up he stands for a second waiting to be kicked again instead of attempting to counterattack. I guess that if it's a nod to old action movies then it serves its purpose, but everything else about the series has been so polished that I can't overlook it. I still love the mythos, world building, and over-the-top styling, even if it is completely scatter-brained at times without much consistency. These movies are oozing style and I love it. I also liked how they built on the connection between John and the Russian ballet/assassin theater by showing those in training having the same tattoos as John's; the black cross on the left shoulder, the praying hands on the back, and potentially the smaller ones on upper back like the wolf on John's upper right (though it was hard to tell at the theater). I guess another implication is that John Wick was a ballet dancer when he was young? I hope that when the movie is released on DVD that someone edits the motorcycle chase scene after John returns to NYC with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrwQPtxR36M
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May 21, 2019 00:01
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