This review may contain spoilers.
Last 30 minutes are great. The first 20 – 30 minutes are also great.
Everything between is completely aimless, meandering, contrived bollocks that moves the film and the series approximately nowhere. By the end of this film, almost nothing has changed. Character motivation is very unclear: first John is leaving NYC. I totally get it. Then, he’s… going to Casablanca? Why? To talk to who? About what?
In Casablanca, the film almost entirely ditches the rich colour palette used throughout its first act and its predecessors, and suddenly it’s night time, and everything is brown. Looks terrible.
When he finally gets sent back to NYC for the third act (for the assignment he received when his motivation was unclear), he has to make a choice. Once he makes that choice, the film comes into its own. He has chosen his path. But that choice comes 90 minutes into the film, when it should have come an hour earlier.
The film becomes neon and colourful again. The action is well lit and purposeful. John has a purpose.
But if I were editing the film, I’d introduce the choice at the end of the first act, and let the consequences ripple out for the remainder of the run time. The film would be far more interesting.
It’s almost like John Wick 4, which is much better about this, is just a do-over to correct the aimlessness of this one.
But the climactic fight scenes are pretty awesome.