As every man (and doge) has to do in their lifetime, I watched the John Wick movie series recently. I had never seen any of the movies before somehow, and just watched them since the first 3 were available on Netflix recently.

CHAPTER 1:
This was a great start to the series, and kept to mostly realistic elements compared to the other movies. It's a great tale of vengeance and demonstrates how John Wick (Keanu Reeves) uses anger and pain to his advantage. I enjoyed each character introduced, and glad to see Ian McShane in the series. After watching the Deadwood series on HBO, I can never get enough Ian McShane on screen, no matter what role he's in. The movie ends on a good note where Wick has to decide if he wants to try to live or not.

CHAPTER 2

If the first movie was good, this one was great. The stakes get higher as Wick travels to Rome to fulfill a marker (some blood bond between two people that the other person must fulfill for the marker to be completed) and explains the workings of how the network of assassinations and underground work: there are rules. Great action sequences, more actors to introduce, and more Ian McShane. I love that a good part of the movie takes place in Rome and shows the Colosseum too. All pluses. Then Mr. Wick finds himself at odds by having a target on himself for fellow assassins to collect money. This was a great moment and certainly raises the stakes in this film. To me, this is the best of the series before it took a bit of departure. It also ends on a great cliffhanger, where you wonder how things are going to work out in the next film. Excellent ending and leaves you wanting more.
I also enjoyed the appearance by fellow Matrix alumni Laurence Fishburne (aka Morpheus in the Matrix movies), not necessarily in the mentor role in this film.

CHAPTER 3

Again, as always, it has great action sequences. And I like the foreign locations. But this is where the movies go a little bit off the rails for me personally. It did introduce new locales, but there wasn't a phenomenal bad guy like the previous two films had, and it reiterates the storyline from the last film that worldwide assassins want to collect the bounty set on John Wick. Mr. Wick travels to Morocco to restore his previous status, and like the assassin's in Assassin's Creed, loses a ring finger. He comes back to save the hotel that assassin's stays at that Ian McShane's character has managed for 40 years. He sacrifices all he has done to save the hotel since it's going to be destroyed. At the end of the movie, it's believed Mr. Wick is dead (we know he's not), and the high table (the name given to the underworld that runs criminal organizations behind the scenes) also questions his actual state since no body was recovered. The big issue with this movie I have is that we pretty much end where we started in the movie. If Mr. Wick is found, he's essentially a dead man (someone will tell the high table, and a bounty would surely be set).

The ending fights were cool, and it was fun to see bulletproof armor and helmets for Mr. Wick and company to take out. Not a bad movie by any means, but just didn't really advance the story in my opinion.

CHAPTER 4

The building that Mr. Wick and company fought so hard to defend in the last movie is destroyed after the high table believes John Wick is alive, sort of making the last movie's story less important. And that's the worst part of the movie, especially as it relates to the series. Again filled with awesome action scenes that the series has always gotten right with live-action and either minimal or no CGI for these scenes. I'm not going to lie though, I wish some of the action scenes were a bit shorter and people seem to be ridiculously immune to bullets unless you are at point-blank range, more so in this movie than the previous films, and kinda takes me out of the movie and turn away a bit. But the choreography of the action scenes is excellent, so if that is your thing, this move has plenty to offer.

The story ends on a great scene, and you know this will be the final chapter for the chronological series. My only complaint is that it's 3 hours long, and I wish it were cut down to more like 2 hours, but that's just me. The series ends on a great but solemn note where you will be happy for the characters in the story.

I would give this entire series of films a 5 out of 5 paws!
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