For the past 11 years, and through four films, John Wick has had a stranglehold on gentlemanly action films. The world’s decade-long infatuation with James Bond and the more recent embrace of the Kingsman franchise, alongside John Wick, reinforces the notion that sometimes we just want to watch a guy in a well-tailored suit kill a whole bunch of people. It’s stylish, exciting, and escapist. All the elements of a fun night at the cinema.
Ballerina, also referred to as From the World of John Wick: Ballerina, is the first spinoff from the John Wick star vehicles for Keanu Reeves. The events of Ballerina are nestled between the third and fourth John Wick films, and they track one of the dancers in the Director’s (Anjelica Huston) dance company.
As a child, Eve (Ana de Armas) was nearly kidnapped from her loving father’s palatial estate. After a tight escape, she is taken by Winston (Ian McShane), the manager of the Continental Hotel in New York to the Director to be raised and taught to dance.
Well, Eve does learn to dance, though it is clear that this dance troop does far more than pliés and barre work. The dancing is an ineffective front for the band of assassins named the Ruska Roma. The “dancers” there do learn to dance, but they also learn to fight and kill. And Eve excels at all of it. She has soon graduated to real assignments, and is out in the world trading death for dollars.
After one particularly bloody but off-screen hit job, Eve is attacked on her way home by men bearing the same mark of the men who tried to kill her father and kidnap her. The Director and Winston tell her to drop her inquiries and not go after that tribe and the truth about her life, but she ignores them and is soon led across the globe to a town rigged for fighting and killing.
De Armas does a good job of playing Eve as a dedicated and haunted young assassin. She has all the right moves and emotions to keep the action moving and keep the audience a touch interested in what her character is feeling at any given time.
However, the sum of all the parts of Ballerina fall flat from what we have come to expect from this layered, rich alternate world of crime and suits.
True, the best bits of the other John Wick films are the fight scenes, but the richness of the world creation around those violent tableaus is what sets these films apart from vapid action films. The systems in place and the depth of bureaucracy enhance the stories and stakes of the people within that world, elevating these films to their own league.
Ballerina never quite hits that mark in depth of field. The action sequences are great, though verge on repetitive. (I never thought I’d be bored with a second flamethrower scene, but here we are.) But the attempts to enhance and expand this hidden-in-plain-sight criminal fall flat. We are told multiple times there is a cult, but brainwashing never arises. Global, categorical repercussions never appear or follow through. The aura of this greater arm of control and culture never manifests. It feels more like a string of scenes and fights than anything contributing to a more profound structure. It just is.
This shift in quality is not a major surprise, but it is a slight disappointment. Stuntman and filmmaker Chad Stahelski who directed the four John Wick proper films did not branch out to steer the helm of Ballerina. Instead Len Wiseman, who directed two of the Underworld films and the Total Recall reboot, stepped in to direct this instalment. Even with two competent chefs, the same ingredients and the same recipe do not always equal the same taste in the final dish.
Ballerina does have its charms, and an apt leading actor. The preceding legacy of the prior John Wick films, however, might lead to a bit of disappointment. But hey, at least the body count is high.
Ballerina hits theatres on June 6.
