'Ballerina' follows John Wick, for better and for worse
The "sidequel" shares many of the same strengths and weaknesses as the franchise that spawned it.
The John Wick series, consisting of four films starring Keanu Reeves as the titular, dog-loving assassin, are marked by some of the best action-adventure filmmaking in recent history, as well as some elaborate mythology and mumbo-jumbo involving secret societies of assassins and their network of hotels.
As much as I’ve appreciated the former, while noting that the Wick series actually somehow got better as it went along, I never cared a great deal about the latter, nor could I ever remember any details about it from movie to movie.
Now, we have Ballerina, officially titled From the World of John Wick: Ballerina, a spinoff of the franchise (I’m hearing it called a “sidequel.”) Starring Ana de Armas as a new character called Eve Macarro, who is both (yes) a ballerina and a killer, the film mostly follows the formula of the previous Wick films, with similar strengths and weaknesses.
De Armas more than ably holds the screen, and the action sequences, while not quite on the level of the half-dozen all-timer setpieces in the last John Wick film, are better than most of what passes for action these days, including some fantastic stuff in the third act, most notably a faceoff involving a pair of flamethrowers, and a brawl in a kitchen.
That said, I had trouble caring for even a minute about any of the Ruska Roma vs. “The Cult” mythology, or why one group of killers is the good killers and the others are the bad killers. And what’s the point of the mountain town full of assassins? Wouldn’t they just be killing each other all the time?
Len Wiseman, a journeyman action filmmaker with an underwhelming output (The Underworld series, the Total Recall remake, and one of the later, lesser Die Hard sequels), steps in as the director, although allegedly Chad Stahelski, the usual director, stepped in for reshoots, along with Reeves, who’s brief appearances are a lot more talkative than we’re used to seeing from Wick.
The film is set during the events of the third John Wick movie, with visits from familiar faces like Ian McShane, Anjelica Huston, those tattooed ladies who answer the phones and, in his final role, Lance Reddick, who passed away in 2023, the same week John Wick: Chapter 4 was released.
De Armas plays Eve, who is born into a family of assassins, which runs afould of “The Cult,” whose leader is “The Chancellor” (Gabriel Byrne). She’s essentially brought into the same order of assassinations from the Wick films, while she’s also trained as a ballerina.
The plot mostly follows her coming of age as an assassin, and her clash with the people who killed her father.
With Keanu Reeves having turned 60 last year, and his character having perished in the most recent film — although to be fair, neither has been a dealbreaker for movies before — the idea is likely for Ballerina to take up the mantle for the franchise, likely in more sequels. The new film is only so-so, but let’s not forget that every movie of the Wick franchise was better than the one before it.