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After four Keanu Reeves-starring John Wick films, now comes the inevitable spin-off to milk the franchise for all it’s worth, following the dire spin-off series titled The Continental.
Ballerina – or to give it its full title From The World Of John Wick: Ballerina – stars Ana de Armas and is set between the events John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum and John Wick: Chapter 4. And before toxic fanboys referring to this newest addition to the franchise as “John Chick” have an aneurism and moan about how the series can’t possibly survive without Reeves, fear not: the Baba Yaga is also back. Briefly. And it’s almost a shame, as de Armas is a force to be reckoned with here.
Not that this comes as a surprise. Her scene-stealing appearance as Paloma in 2021’s No Time To Die might as well have been an audition tape for Ballerina, as the actress can handle action sequences with aplomb and delivers the goods four years later.
She plays Eve Macarro, a ballerina-turned-assassin with the Ruska Roma, who defies her orders and sets out to seek revenge on those who murdered her father (David Castañeda). Her quest takes her to the New York Continental (featuring a brief but very welcome cameo from the late Lance Reddick), and later to an Austrian village (almost exclusively populated by assassins) to complete her collision course with The Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne).
Plot-wise, that’s about as far as it goes, as Shay Hatten’s wafer-thin script is this adventure’s pitfall. Lines like “a bullet is not good or evil” grate and subplots are forgotten about before they’ve even begun, leading to quality performers being criminally underused. Catalina Sandino Moreno, playing the enigmatic Lena, and Norman Reedus as the shady Daniel Pine suffer the most. Add an exposition-heavy first act which drags its feet, and there should be every reason to dismiss Ballerina as nothing more than a cynical cash-grab.
However, for all its many pitfalls, Ballerina picks up in the second half and delivers a broadly enjoyable romp. It works best when it streamlines proceedings and does away with the overwrought and increasingly contrived lore that gradually plagued the previous John Wick movies. By eventually settling for Ana de Armas gun-fuing, punching and blasting everything and everyone that gets in her way, audiences can (finally) start to have some fun.
There are rumblings that this second half pick-up has to do with rumoured reshoots. Ballerina had a troubled production, with franchise mastermind Chad Stahelski apparently having to step in and take the reins from director Len Wiseman (Underworld, Live Free Or Die Hard).
There’s no doubt about who the superior filmmaker is, and which one has a keener eye for kinetic action…
Thanks to the satisfying simplicity of the second half – which recalls the familiar slickness of John Wick‘s choreography – Ballerina gets better, with two sequences involving hand grenades being lobbed about after a meeting is rudely interrupted and a flamethrower face-off standing out. It’s in these moments that de Armas’ character has to adapt to her environments and show her scrappy resourcefulness. In doing so, you truly get to appreciate how the much the actress had to give it socks, as she did many of the stunts herself.
Add the fact that the character of Eve is fiery – especially compared to the ice-cold stoicism of John Wick – and the ultra-violent proceedings often feel more visceral. So much so that when the boogeyman does show up for an extended cameo, you won’t care all that much.
As flawed and overlong as it is, Ana de Armas’ performance and her commitment to the action in the film’s second half elevates Ballerina to a worthy entry in the John Wick canon. It’s not up there with other female-led assassin movies like Nikita, The Long Kiss Goodnight or Hanna, but it crosses the finish line as an unabashedly trashy spin-off that makes you hope this assassin will get to dance again.
Ballerina is in cinemas now.
