Yesterday I gave myself a day off from working and decided to go to the cinema and watch one of my all time on screen heroes do what he does best.
Keanu Reeves has been an inspiration to me since I first saw Bill & Ted as a kid and then The Matrix which was the very first DVD I owned when they became a thing in 2000.
I remember watching Thomas Andersson’s journey to becoming Neo and those famous words he spoke to Morpheus – “I know Kung Fu”. It was titillating and was absolutely one of those pinnacle moments that ultimately led to my own desire to work in the movie business.
Parabellum is the third chapter in the John Wick series written by Derek Kolstad and Directed by Chad Stahelski. The film starts in the moments right after the end of Chapter 2 with John (Keanu) running through the rainfall in the neo noir setting of New York City as the hour before his exile rapidly counts down.
The film is an action packed 131 minutes with an incredible soundtrack and beautiful art direction. The colour scheme is dark yet beautifully textured with bold colours adding to the mysterious essence of the story. The camera angles and long takes are breath taking and made possible by the awe inspiring fight choreography's that the franchise is famous for.
You may or may not have noticed the trend on the internet surrounding Keanu Reeves lately and I have to say that I feel it is absolutely deserved. The amount of work and dedication that goes into making even one of the endless fight sequences is immense. The hours of training and planning and practising over and over again to get each movement perfectly give the team behind John Wick that freedom to shoot wider and capture the action without having to use multiple, fast cuts in the edit room.
This is the kind of fight scenes that I want to create in my own career and I am always looking for people to collaborate with and to train with and because of this I know that to even create a 1 minute choreography takes patience and grit and a lot of repetition before it is camera ready.
I highly enjoyed John Wick: Parebellum, I was impressed by Halle Berries input, loved seeing Laurence Fishburn back with Keanu and of course was blown away as always by Reeves performance. I left the theatre inspired, excited and motivated.
Let me know what your thoughts on the film are in the comments