‘From the World of John Wick: Ballerina' Review: Dance, Killer, Dance!

New York Times

a day ago

With a title as cumbersome as its germinating mythology, 'From the World of John Wick: Ballerina' is a stone-cold, self-infatuated effort to couple another boxcar to the franchise money train. I regret to report that Keanu Reeves's titular assassin does not appear in a tutu.
He does pop in, though, ever so briefly, lest we lose interest before the promised fifth installment. Set during the events of 'John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum' (2019), 'Ballerina' is besotted with Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas), a lithe and lovely orphan who saw her father murdered and is obsessed with revenge. Inducted into the Ruska Roma, a cultlike clan whose ballet school fronts a contract-killer training facility, Eve practices pirouettes and punches with equal enthusiasm. Her toes are bloody, but her resolve is undimmed.
A luxe orgy of mass murder, 'Ballerina' dances from one bloody melee to another, its back-of-a-matchbook plot (by Shay Hatton) driven solely by arterial motives. As Eve defies the ballet school's director (Anjelica Huston, more formidable than a roomful of Baryshnikovs) to pursue the well-protected head of a rival clan, the movie tends the franchise flame with a Wick-world checklist of familiar tropes. Like the impossibly creative, perfectly executed, utterly ridiculous fight sequences, which include Eve's father single-handedly overcoming a literal boatload of would-be assassins, or Eve laying waste to the lethal residents of an entire Austrian village. Outlandish weaponry is a given, and 'Ballerina' delights in deploying everything from expensive cookware to ice skates. There's even a hulking, Dolph Lundgren type wielding a flamethrower.
From time to time, the feverish slaughter pauses respectfully to allow English and Irish acting legends to inject brief moments of gravitas. Ian McShane's menacingly dapper Winston is around to offer foster-fatherly advice and drop murky hints about Eve's true parentage, and Gabriel Byrne appears as the mysterious head of the rival family and the bearer of further familial secrets. It's all a bit much for Eve, who seems more relieved than scared when Wick himself shows up with a contract to stop her one-woman rampage. I suspect the audience will be equally thankful.
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