It was a surprise to see relatively early into Ballerina (officially From the World of John Wick: Ballerina, an utterly atrocious title) the appearance of Lance Reddick as Charon. Reddick tragically passed away shortly before the release of John Wick: Chapter 4 in early 2023. And while on the one hand it is welcome to see him one more time, his presence is also a stark reflection of how long ago this movie was shot and the protracted post-production it has undergone. That is not strictly a problematic sign, but it can often serve as an explanation for a film’s deficiencies of cohesion, as is the case in several places in Ballerina. You can spot for instance where series architect Chad Stahelski took over in re-shoots from director Les Wiseman. You can perhaps even pinpoint where the studio decided after initial filming to give Keanu Reeves a more prominent role than he really ought to have.
As a result of these, it is a very odd movie -though not one that dramatically sticks out from the John Wick universe broadly. It plays in those aesthetics and that gravitas as well as any of them -it fits on a very basic level with that world, its rules, and its style. But it is missing some vital elements that those movies never wanted for.
Ana de Armas stars as the titular ballerina, Eve Macarro, who as a child witnessed her father -an assassin of the Ruska Roma tribe- murdered by a rival and secretive cult of assassins trying to abduct her. Escaping their clutches, she is raised in New York and trained under the purview of the Ruska Roma director there, played by Anjelica Huston. Once an assassin in her own right, Eve is compelled upon being attacked by one of these cultists, to track them down and take vengeance for what happened to her family. Entirely on her own terms of course.
For being called Ballerina, Eve’s cover vocation doesn’t factor a whole lot into her character here. Beyond her curiosity with a ballerina music box -a token of her deceased sister- and a couple scenes of her struggle at the New York ballet studio, there is not the kind of elegance or grace one would expect from that moniker in the way that she carries out her real work. This might not matter so much except that the John Wick series is known for some degree of that even through brutal fight scenes. Hers often lean more rough and choppy. That isn’t to say though they are in any way fake or uninteresting compared to other movies. Some are in fact very intense and creative, a little colder and less slick perhaps than this franchise is used to but not a sizable downgrade. And de Armas takes to the action very well, holding her own against several combatants bigger and more frenetic than her, and she puts real fury into her fight. As with Keanu, it is clear that doing her own stunt work was important here, and she proves herself thoroughly dedicated in that craft.
But for the fun that there is in several of these sequences, the plotting around them is more mundane in effect -especially where things intersect with the wider John Wick universe, which is employed here to hold the movie’s hand, restrict it from fully standing on its own. Giving prominent roles to Ian McShane’s Winston and even John Wick himself is a touch distracting, and demonstrates a lack of confidence either in de Armas’s ability to carry the movie on its own, or (and more probably) in the audience’s potential attraction to the movie if it doesn’t have the thing they already recognize. This of course invites certain continuity issues with that franchise pertaining to Wick’s role here, which is at first a cameo that balloons into a telegraphed role in the film’s climax, that very literally takes the spotlight away from Eve, and hurts the flow of things on top of everything else.
Identified by an ‘x’ scar on their wrists, the cultists’ signature practice is kidnapping children to groom into their order, valuing these children in their care more than their parents, as Eve witnesses firsthand with one turncoat played by Norman Reedus whom she manages to find with his daughter in Prague. Gabriel Byrne is their Chancellor and the chief subject of Eve’s vendetta, running things from their traditional base of Hallstatt, Austria -a real place that might not care for their denizens being labeled as amoral child-abducting assassins by this movie. These antagonists and their machinations are built up significantly by the script but reduced as well to the parameters of Eve’s simple revenge. There is a hollowness to her motivation too that the film is aware of, and even uses John Wick on two occasions to comment on -yet nothing comes of it. John Wick’s death wish and pathological inability to walk away from this life makes him a fascinating anti-hero who can get away somewhat with the intensity of his violence. But Eve is a more conventional protagonist who consequently cannot. And it makes her brutality a little less palatable. The film handles very poorly as well a last act twist that communicates no real nuance in the situation and effects Eve’s perception only marginally -probably the most glaring of several story beats that feel ripped from some separate script or designed to fill out time between fights.
Yet the heart of the movie remains in those fights, and while there is nothing here that can top any of the best, most elaborate sequences of any prior John Wick installment, there is still a good degree of ingenuity and energy. The most aesthetically curious is also the shortest, the final arc of her training that does come off a little like a video game scenario but is set in a frozen-themed nightclub that could have come out of Batman & Robin. More extensive is a sequence at an arms dealer inventory that makes ample use of grenades and one a snow-capped European cafe, wherein de Armas showcases some acrobatic bona fides. The long climactic battle is the standout though borrowing from the Wick template of Eve having to face down a horde of assassins, though this time all through an otherwise picturesque village. Through each of these, the beats are inventive, involving a range of weapons from a makeshift bayonet to a flame-thrower, though they can feel a bit limited stylistically. There are no big technical swings like in John Wick: Chapter 4, and the often shabby spaces or night-time settings can give them a rather gray look while other scenes demonstrate the movie is more than capable of buoyant colour. But they are nonetheless engaging and interesting.
Existing as a kind of sub-story within the greater John Wick world, Ballerina is appropriately a fraction of a John Wick movie. Enjoyable and spontaneous enough in its action beats but less rich in substance, story, and style. It is also far too brazenly dependent on its connection to that world, to the point it suffers a little creatively -certainly there is no reason John Wick needed to be in it beyond brand recognition. It carries itself through, though perhaps not enough to warrant its ambitions (it sets up a sequel in very much the same way that John Wick: Chapter 2 did). But Ana de Armas makes for a fitting action lead, if the ballerina connection goes unnoticed, and she’s given good material here. That is at least enough to justify it.
Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JordanBosch
Follow me on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jordanbosch.bsky.social
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/jbosch
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jordan_D_Bosch
Comments
Post a Comment