John Wick: Chapter 3 (2019)

Nidhogg · May 31, 2018

Don't be naive j00t - Ripley wasn't the only main character in Aliens, specifically Corporal Hicks - and Ripley -does- die in Alien 3. V is as much a protagonist as Natalie Portman's character - anti-heroes are still heroes.
The great thing about Predator is that the enemy held a completely viable chance at killing your main hero (although obviously he won't) by way of him killing off side characters who are supposedly of equal caliber to our main hero. That's what is missing from John Wick. None of the cast from Pacific Rim 1 minus the weird kaiju-nerd guy and the Asian chick made it into the sequel - and Will Smith's character was tastelessly killed off-screen from ID4 to ID42.

Your supposition that main characters don't die in action films is just summarily false. Unless you think Bruce Willis survived Armageddon.

ZyyzYzzy · May 31, 2018

Nidhogg said:
Sorry, I guess I just expect more from my action movies, or maybe I like bad guys that aren't just there to showcase how awesome the protagonist is. If that's your thing - then fine, John Wick does that in spades, I just find it boring. How many times can he shoot nameless bad guys with aim so bad you wonder how they passed their eye exams for their drivers licenses? The style works for some movies (Kill Bill comes to mind) as a superior swordsman can cut down lesser enemies, even in overwhelming odds - and it can be believable. Even with that example however, there are fights where you fear for the main character's life (fighting the various "mini-bosses" in Kill Bill). This is absent in John Wick - he murders everyone in equally flashy and effortless fashion, all the way up to the final bad guy.
Again, if that's your cup of tea, then this movie has it in spades. It is not my definition of a good action flick. You claiming 99% of action movies end with the main hero unscathed is baseless. Main hero(es) can die (Braveheart, Fearless, Aliens, Saving Private Ryan, V for Vendetta, Resevoir Dogs) or not return for sequels (Predator series, Pacific Rim, Independence Day 2, One of the 20 Fast and Furious movies) just to name a few.

Fucking faggot

j00t · May 31, 2018

Nidhogg said:
Don't be naive j00t - Ripley wasn't the only main character in Aliens, specifically Corporal Hicks - and Ripley -does- die in Alien 3. V is as much a protagonist as Natalie Portman's character - anti-heroes are still heroes.
The great thing about Predator is that the enemy held a completely viable chance at killing your main hero (although obviously he won't) by way of him killing off side characters who are supposedly of equal caliber to our main hero. That's what is missing from John Wick. None of the cast from Pacific Rim 1 minus the weird kaiju-nerd guy and the Asian chick made it into the sequel - and Will Smith's character was tastelessly killed off-screen from ID4 to ID42.

Your supposition that main characters don't die in action films is just summarily false. Unless you think Bruce Willis survived Armageddon.

ripley dies in alien 3. but alien 3 is, again, not an action movie. it's a suspense/horror thriller. v is A protagonist, but he's not THE protagonist. natalie portman is the main character. and honestly, i'm not even really sure if v for vendetta would qualify as an action movie? i don't know, i could go either way. but regardless, v isn't the main character. and the term "protagonist" doesn't care about the character, or their capacity for heroics or evil. the protagonist is simply the main character, the vew point that the story looks through. an anti-hero is, by definition, not a hero. they CAN, however, still be the main protagonist. but again, V isn't the main protagonist.

listen, ultimately i understand your point, that, in your opinion, you never felt that john wick was in any real danger. for whatever reason, that just didn't translate to you. that's fine. just understand that the predator ALMOST killing arnold is identical to all of those nameless henchmen ALMOST killing john wick (for the purpose of creating tension)

zzeris · May 31, 2018

I'm not going to defend the guy that doesn't understand 80s action flicks but it does get boring after a while. That's why Rambo 3 started to get ridiculous, Expendables is ending at 4 and this series will probably end at 3. It's fun as hell but very repetitive after the first few. I loved JW but 2 was a huge let down. It wasn't bad but I thought the first was superior by a fairly large margin. I'm hoping they finish strong but either way it should be a solid viewing.

Kaige · May 31, 2018

I like the John Wick movies, the action is great, but I find the criminal underground activities more interesting.

Amzin · May 31, 2018

There are very, very, very few actual action movies where the main character dies, and all of those have it happen at the end of the movie in some heroic and usually cheesy manner (the thing parodied in Deadpool 2). The tenseness is almost never from believing the character could die, it's from wondering how (not if) they surpass / get around / cheat their way through a particular challenge. The only times there's ever actual tension regarding survival (unless you just do not know how stories work) is when they mask who the main character is behind a wider, main-ish seeming cast, like Predator and to a lesser extent Infinity War (that one is weakened by the fact that it was probably only going to be Thanos doing the murdering and the fact that any of it can be undone in the sequel).

j00t · May 31, 2018

infinity war is an odd duck in the grand scheme of things because based on story progression, character arc, screen time, thanos is the main character. thanos is clearly a villian, but he's the protagonist of the story. he's at odds with every other character that we've been caring about for up to a decade so we aren't rooting for him, but he's the one that the story is following.

Merrith · May 31, 2018

Nidhogg said:
Don't be naive j00t - Ripley wasn't the only main character in Aliens, specifically Corporal Hicks - and Ripley -does- die in Alien 3. V is as much a protagonist as Natalie Portman's character - anti-heroes are still heroes.
The great thing about Predator is that the enemy held a completely viable chance at killing your main hero (although obviously he won't) by way of him killing off side characters who are supposedly of equal caliber to our main hero. That's what is missing from John Wick. None of the cast from Pacific Rim 1 minus the weird kaiju-nerd guy and the Asian chick made it into the sequel - and Will Smith's character was tastelessly killed off-screen from ID4 to ID42.

Your supposition that main characters don't die in action films is just summarily false. Unless you think Bruce Willis survived Armageddon.

What the fuck? AJ is the hero in Armageddon. Harry got old and passed the baton.

BoozeCube · May 31, 2018

Nidhogg said:
Sorry, I guess I just expect more from my action movies, or maybe I like bad guys that aren't just there to showcase how awesome the protagonist is. If that's your thing - then fine, John Wick does that in spades, I just find it boring. How many times can he shoot nameless bad guys with aim so bad you wonder how they passed their eye exams for their drivers licenses? The style works for some movies (Kill Bill comes to mind) as a superior swordsman can cut down lesser enemies, even in overwhelming odds - and it can be believable. Even with that example however, there are fights where you fear for the main character's life (fighting the various "mini-bosses" in Kill Bill). This is absent in John Wick - he murders everyone in equally flashy and effortless fashion, all the way up to the final bad guy.
Again, if that's your cup of tea, then this movie has it in spades. It is not my definition of a good action flick. You claiming 99% of action movies end with the main hero unscathed is baseless. Main hero(es) can die (Braveheart, Fearless, Aliens, Saving Private Ryan, V for Vendetta, Resevoir Dogs) or not return for sequels (Predator series, Pacific Rim, Independence Day 2, One of the 20 Fast and Furious movies) just to name a few.

It's ok to have terrible taste.

Prodigal · Jun 7, 2018

I can’t help but think of Commando when talking about protagonists never really at risk of death/injury. I watched it again with my son and laughed my ass off as 10+ guys are shooting at him in a courtyard, then he turns around, sweep/sprays and knock all their asses backwards. Cue guys shooting at him from a cheap plywood “guard tower”, RPG their asses out of it while bits of white plywood fly everywhere. Run out of ammo? Dive into a gardeners shack, find circular saw blades and use them as throwing stars.

John Wick - John Matrix in a suit, but which one is more badass?

ohkcrlho · Jan 16, 2019

Trailer drops tomorrow

Braen · Jan 16, 2019

Xarpolis · Jan 16, 2019

May 17th. Nice. Between Avengers: Endgame, Game of Thrones and now this, it's going to be a very good couple of weeks.

Slaanesh69 · Jan 16, 2019

The first John Wick was a revenge flick masterpiece - I mean, you layer the loss of a puppy on everything else and you just want him to juice every bad guy in the movie. Which he does. It failed a bit at the end where the only real extended fight was against the softest opponent in the movie, the actual mob boss, but by that time I was fully sated and allowed it.

The second was a very pale shadow of the first. I am unsure what I was expecting, but I actually bought it on movie-on-demand and did not even finish watching it. Was it because the first movie introduced this boogieman and we watched as he slowly revealed why he had gained this notoriety, but the second movie did not have the benefit of that build up and payout?

Anyway, I recently subscribed to Crave, so I guess I may give it another go once I get through the movies I want to watch (which included Happy Death Day over a rewatch of JW2 haha), but I sincerely hope 3 is a vast improvement and a strong end to a trilogy.

But I won't hold my breath.

j00t · Jan 16, 2019

Slaanesh69 said:
The first John Wick was a revenge flick masterpiece - I mean, you layer the loss of a puppy on everything else and you just want him to juice every bad guy in the movie. Which he does. It failed a bit at the end where the only real extended fight was against the softest opponent in the movie, the actual mob boss, but by that time I was fully sated and allowed it.

The second was a very pale shadow of the first. I am unsure what I was expecting, but I actually bought it on movie-on-demand and did not even finish watching it. Was it because the first movie introduced this boogieman and we watched as he slowly revealed why he had gained this notoriety, but the second movie did not have the benefit of that build up and payout?

Anyway, I recently subscribed to Crave, so I guess I may give it another go once I get through the movies I want to watch (which included Happy Death Day over a rewatch of JW2 haha), but I sincerely hope 3 is a vast improvement and a strong end to a trilogy.

But I won't hold my breath.

so here's the problem. there were several distinct aspects of john wick that made it interesting. the storyline and the style of action being probably the 2 main things. in a sequel you have to figure out which part is what people are the most interested in and give them that. in the first one the storyline is really pretty simple. it's a plot that exists to facilitate the action.

in the second one? well, the storyline exists to facilitate the action, however, it's lost a lot of the mystery because A) we already KNOW who john wick is, so there's no shock when we see him efficiently murder a bunch of people and B) over-explaining the secret assassin's guild means it's not secret anymore and becomes inherently less interesting.

honestly, i think there was only a few options they writers had. either focus on the mystery at the cost of the action, or vice versa. i'm glad they went with action over mythos, though i can completely understand the frustration in losing that.

Malakriss · Jan 16, 2019

You know why we like John Wick and can complain about how long action scenes are? Because no god damn shaky cam.

j00t · Jan 16, 2019

Shaky cam can be great in the right circumstance. When a scene is chaotic and frenetic it does a great job of showing that. It also does a great job of seperating good cinematographers and bad ones.

Hateyou · Jan 16, 2019

j00t said:
Shaky cam can be great in the right circumstance. When a scene is chaotic and frenetic it does a great job of showing that. It also does a great job of seperating good cinematographers and bad ones.

The problem is so many movies use it in the wrong circumstance. Ohh someone’s running, shake it so fucking much and cut back and forth you can’t even process what’s going on! That is not how I imagine watching people run. Or car chase, or so many other overused shaky cam scenes.

Chanur · Jan 16, 2019

Prodigal said:
I can’t help but think of Commando when talking about protagonists never really at risk of death/injury. I watched it again with my son and laughed my ass off as 10+ guys are shooting at him in a courtyard, then he turns around, sweep/sprays and knock all their asses backwards. Cue guys shooting at him from a cheap plywood “guard tower”, RPG their asses out of it while bits of white plywood fly everywhere. Run out of ammo? Dive into a gardeners shack, find circular saw blades and use them as throwing stars.

John Wick - John Matrix in a suit, but which one is more badass?

I love them both for completely different reasons. Hope this continues to be good.

j00t · Jan 16, 2019

Hateyou said:
The problem is so many movies use it in the wrong circumstance. Ohh someone’s running, shake it so fucking much and cut back and forth you can’t even process what’s going on! That is not how I imagine watching people run. Or car chase, or so many other overused shaky cam scenes.

yeah, that's exactly the problem. it helps hide shoddy action and practical effects so a lot of directors choose it to save money. it sucks

John Wick: Chapter 3 (2019)

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