★★★★ Who would have guessed that the story of a guy whose dog is killed and who seeks revenge could lead to a saga of films that is more than successful. Who would have thought that the story of the canine vindicator would end in an epic film of almost three hours in which it is impossible to get bored. Well, no one: it’s one of those great little miracles that sometimes happens with the cinema, especially with popular cinema. John Wick is perhaps the character best in sync with today’s world: stylized violence, all kinds of martial arts, kicks and punches, nods to the traditional adventure film past, a story that could well have been signed by Alejandro Dumas, action sequences made with the best technology and, yes, its own mythology (the brotherhood of assassins, the hotel where they heal their wounds, the rules of a world below the world). If this film is better than the previous ones, it is not because there is something new in this universe, but because it expands what is known and makes it broader. But what matters is pure movement: that is what John Wick is all about at this point, a completely abstract cinema made -paradox of paradoxes- from hyperkinetic and baroque sequences. It is perhaps what is asked of cinema today, and it works: for that long time, nothing else matters than the fate of that bearded Keanu capable of any feat, of pure bodies in motion.
