Friday night I returned to the world of John Wick in preparation for the latest instalment, which I was off to see on Saturday.

In Chapter 2, we left John Wick after he had broken the rules of The Continental by killing someone on the grounds of the hotel. He had been given one hour before being deemed excommunicado and that is where Chapter 3 begins.

As the clock strikes ten past five, it appears to have been an extraordinary long ten minutes, as New York has passed from a sunny day to a heavy rainy night. And that’s the kind of detail that this film continues with throughout its runtime.

The opening twelve minutes of screentime cover the remaining fifty minutes of the hour before John’s excommunicado status comes into effect, and a lot of that are time calls as to how the hour is progressing. Yet later in the film when there is a seven-day timeline, the audience is given no concept of how much time has passed. We just magically arrive at seven days.

One of my biggest issues is what happens once the hour is up. No scratch that, a few minutes before the hour is up. When we first met John Wick back in the first film, everyone who knows (of) him is scared of his reputation – you do not mess with this dude. A kid makes a mistake and kills his dog, setting off a chain of events where now hundreds of people are dead or severely wounded. He killed three guys with a pencil after all! So why is it now, that literally every person on the street wants to have a crack at killing him? Is John Wick not as scary for a $14M price tag? Is the price tag worth dying for on the off chance they can get to him? Honestly it just makes no sense.

I also can’t seem to work out if the film takes itself too seriously or is taking the mickey. It feels like some cast members have been told it is a drama, while the others to have a bit of fun with it. You’ve got some heavy hitters with Halle Berry and Jerome Flynn joining the cast who give straight, dare I say serious, performances in what are at times ridiculous situations. Then you’ve got Mark Dacascos, who was my favourite part of the film, bringing some whimsy to the table.

Chapter 3 also looks to give us more history into the world of the assassins and the layers to the character of John. Yet here too they have appeared to fail. There are multiple threads introduced, some interesting, but they ultimately go nowhere.

A positive from the last two films, was the addition of two new female characters.

Unfortunately, the scenes with Halle Berry didn’t add value to the plot. This section of the film could have been removed quite easily saving runtime with no impact on the plot. The included action scene however was one of the better ones, returning to the look of a video game and bringing back memories of playing laser tag.

The character of The Adjudicator on the other hand, played by Asia Kate Dillon, was of interest and something that I enjoyed. This character fit in well with the world that has been built and played off well against Ian McShane’s character of Winston.

In conclusion the third instalment of the John Wick series does move the story along and includes several more action sequences, building up to some good ones towards the end. There are knives, guns, horses, and dogs. So, if you don’t mind plot holes and a lot of action with one-liners, then this would be a film for you.