How bad can fight scenes be?

It depends - they can be poorly done, or they can be poorly implemented into the movie.

In this case, it's a bit of the former, and all of the latter.

More specifically - the fight scenes have a few seconds of brilliance here and there, but in general they are mediocre, repetitive, and drawn out to the point of becoming boring halfway through each of those scenes.

Filming and editing are equally uninspired, only doing the basic task of capturing stereotypical action choreography and worn out effects.

Even worse, the action gets in the way of what little story there is; this film has moments when a coherent and convincing tale is showing through - like there's an actual movie, desperately trying to get out.

But to no avail; inevitably yet another endless tedious action scene will have you reach for the forward key.

Many missed opportunities, like the brilliant idea of that one 'unique' hitman, which then was so poorly executed.

Action movies, fight scenes, they've been mastered ages ago; of course by many of the better martial arts movies from the East, or Western films like Kill Bill.

What they have in common is a sense for proportion, balance, timing and rhythm - this flick only piles one cheap thrill on top of another, and another, and so on to the point of exhaustion.

It's unfortunate the creators chose to completely abandon the recipe of the first two John Wick movies, which were very decent.

On a positive note: John Wick 3 was even worse re. All of the above; but a heavy dose of confirmation bias might have made the creators of this sequel ignore its predecessors' obvious shortcomings.