John Wick may or may not be dead (it’s complicated), but just because we got a shot of his tombstone at the climax of his fourth movie, it doesn’t mean that the bafflingly complicated world in which he operated can’t still continue. We’ve had Wick spin-offs before in the form of the decidedly “ok” show, The Continental, but now, pirouetting into cinemas is yet another attempt to expand the universe the bearded, dog loving one moved around in in Ballerina.
Set during and after the bruising events of John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum, Ballerina shifts the focus to the Russian crime fraternity known as Ruska Roma who originally trained the legendary assassin who went on to secure the nickname “Baba Yaga”. but instead of sharp suits, we trade them in for Ballerina shoes as Ana de Armas steps into the breech as Eve, a similarly lethal engine of destruction who has her own part to play in the systematic increase in the mortality rate of criminals the world over. Can the Wick-verse continue without its titular figurehead? I guess we’re yet to find out, as big John’s along for the ride too.
After her father was killed by cultists looking to take them back into their fold, a young Eve Macarro is subsequently inducted into the Ruska Roma, an underground Russian organisation that employs grueling methods to train and employ assassins. After getting the requisite badass tattoos and being taught how to fuck up guys twice her size (the secret is to go for the balls, unsurprisingly), it seems that Eve is poised to potentially become one of the greatest killers The Director has ever trained. Even a chance meeting with the legendary John Wick – who advises her to not go down the assassin route – can stop her skills from passing every test thrown at her; and yet two months after meeting Baba Yaga, Eve has a run in with the Cult while on another job.
The Cultists can be identified by a distinctive scar on their wrist and after a little digging, Eve discovers that not only do the Ruska Roma know all about the Cult and it’s leader, The Chancellor, but they even have a truce with them that’s been unbroken for a long, long time. Of course, once Eve has the scent of blood in her nostrils for the group that killed her father, she takes it upon herself to get some longstanding revenge and starts tracking the Cultists back to their source, but the piles of managed bodies she leaves in her wake soon starts to ruffle many feathers.
However, the closer she gets to the Chancellor, the more unsettling secrets she unwittingly uncovers and as her rampage starts to set in motion a gang war between the Cultists and the Ruska Roma, mutual steps are taken to stop her quest dead. And if you want something dead in this world, the man you call is John Wick…
While certainly carrying the style and panache of a John Wick caper, Ballerina frequently feels more like a side dish to the main course no matter how hard it tries. The slick surroundings are all present and correct, the body count certainly matches up and we even get that curious John Wick occurrence where people are shot full in the face in a high-end nightclub and everyone there just keeps on dancing (cocaine’s a helluva drug); and yet certain matters persist in allowing you to hold it in the same esteem as the Keanu led movies of the rapidly ballooning franchise. For a start, there’s a weird feeling that Ballerina would have been better served if it had somehow been released before the majestic John Wick Chapter 4, as not only would it have had more impact, but having Keanu Reeves show up for an extended cameo would have felt less like a transparent marketing ploy after the character had “died”.
However, after her standout turn in No Time To Die where she proved that she has no problems holding her own alongside action movie legends, Ana de Armas reminds us that despite having a set of gargantuan, soulful eyeballs that any Disney animator would kill for, she can snap bones and load hollow points with the best of them. Sure, Eve may be even more of a character cypher as Wick is, but she proves that she’s adept at using extended action scenes to wordlessly convey her heroine’s slightly erratic arc and when push comes to shove, isn’t that what a Wick flick is all about?
Actually, absolute carnage is what the Wick flicks are all about and even though Len Wiseman (Underworld, Die Hard 4.0) is no Chad Stahelski, Ballerina fulfills its action brief with frenzied aplomb and even though Tom Cruise has surely cornered the 2025 stunt market by dangling from biplanes, when it comes to down and dirty action scenes, Armas actually nails it. Are there too many action scenes? Certainly. The movie demands that some sort of firearm has to go off at least every fifteen minutes and as a result, it seems like some of the deranged bloodletting has been expanded to cover the fact that the plot barely hangs together at all. Still, it’s tough to complain too much when the movie dedicates itself so hard to make its action sequences as innovative as possible. A sequence where Eve is required to defend herself in an enclosed space with nothing but handgrenades is fiendishly smart but its an audacious flamethrower duel – yes, a flamethrower duel – that might actually take top spot as the action setpiece of the year. Also helping matters is that Eve, much like Wick, isn’t a flawless brawler and takes just as much bone rattling punishment as she gives out which helps sell the insanity incredibly well.
It’s just a shame that large sections of its story simply refuse to make sense and while the likes of Ian McShane, Anjelina Huston, and the late Lance Reddick are on hand to play stony-faced, exposition spewing gate keepers to the franchise, it often feels like Ballerina has smooshed its origin story and it’s first sequel into a single film. We get a detailed look into Eve’s Black Widow style training that takes up the first third of the film, but once we get into the Cult area of the movie, things start to collapse. For a start, it’s never adequately explained what the Cult actually want and Gabriel Byrne’s villainous leanings seem nebulous, even throwing in shock revelations concerning Eve’s family, but none of them land even half as confidently as Amas’ right hook.
Worse yet, the second part of Keanu Reeves’ much ballyhooed cameo actually seems to make no sense in relation to the established timeline. If Ballerina’s climax takes place months after John Wick Chapter 3, that would mean Baba Yaga has healed himself after taking his tumble off of a skyscraper. But if he’s in hiding before Chapter 4 kicks off, while is he taking requests from the Ruska Roma to suddenly show up in Prague for a job when it’s already been established that he’s been kicked out of the organisation.
Still, as distracting as the inconsistencies are, it doesn’t stop Ballerina from containing some truly top notch action and expecting good things from a future spin-off centered around Donnie Yen’s blind ass kicker, Caine. However, while a flamethrower duel does wonders for the movie, and further entries into the world of John Wick may benefit from a sharper aim when it comes to the plot.
🌟🌟🌟
We Have Issues 
One comment