Movie review: 'Ballerina' honors 'John Wick' style

UPI

2 days ago

1 of 5 | Eve (Ana de Armas) fights one of many bad guys in "Ballerina," in theaters Friday. Photo courtesy of Lionsgate
LOS ANGELES, June 4 (UPI) -- Ballerina, in large format theaters Wednesday and all theaters Friday, applies the superior action of John Wick to new characters within that world. Though the story is simpler, the action is undeniably relentless.
Ana de Armas stars as Eve, a woman who was taken in by the Ruska Roma ballet after Continental hotel manager Winston (Ian McShane) rescued her as a child. While training under The Director (Angelica Huston) with the ballerina assassins, Eve dreams of avenging her father.
In the film's opening scene, Eve's father tries to protect her from The Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne), the leader of a tribe of assassins described by others in the Wick world as a cult. As an adult, The Director forbids Eve from pursuing the tribe, so in rogue hero fashion she does it anyway.
Avenging a loved one is a much more conventional motivation than in John Wick. In the first film, Keanu Reeves' Wick was avenging a dog, though the film added layers of subtext to address the other convention of a retired assassin being forced back into the business.
Each Wick film further developed the world of the Continental and High Table assassins. After four of those, Eve's quest remains more straightforward, learning to kill so she can defeat the killers. When a villain tells her they are one and the same, it will sound familiar from many other action movies.
Still, Eve's methods are what makes Ballerina stand out in the genre. Eve fights Korean gangsters in a nightclub with an iced floor. They're unarmed but still seem more formidable than Eve's guns and she can't just shoot her way out.
Another scene begins after Eve has already gone to work, so the viewer can imagine how smooth and creative she was to take out all those men. Don't worry, she's not done and more action ensues.
The action captures the cause and effect that makes the 87eleven action team the high watermark in the genre. So a grenade not only helps Eve defeat one opponent, but it blows a hole in the wall that she can walk through and continue the fight into the next room.
Like in the Wick films, enemies show themselves to be trained killers after initially appearing as innocuous extras. One highlight is a fight in a mountain restaurant in which the entire staff comes after Eve.
Ballerina also has a John Wick-style gunfight using flamethrowers. This is what movies are for!
Director Len Wiseman edits more frequently than Wick director Chad Stahelski. The first few fights are more choppy, but later sequences incorporate longer takes full of action, if not quite as elegant as the ones in Stahelski's films.
Ruska Roma trainer Nogi (Sharon Duncan Brewster) advises Eve that she will always be weaker and smaller than her opponents so she has to figure out how to win in those scenarios. That's what makes John Wick great too. He's not the biggest or strongest either, but he's inventive and perseveres.
During training, Eve thinks of the obvious kick to the crotch, but never repeats that move. She gets more clever in her subsequent fights, improvising weapons out of dinner plates, ice skates and more.
There is no substitute for Keanu Reeves, so fortunately he has a substantial role in Ballerina. Eve first meets John when he visits the Ruska Roma during the events of John Wick: Chapter 3. In a new scene, he gives her advice in such a cryptic Keanu way that it has more gravitas than the usual warning.
John takes part in two action scenes later, further making Ballerina worth the admission for fans of the franchise. Since this appearance is set between the third and fourth John Wick films, there is a sense he can't quite move forward. He's waiting, but Reeves commits to his role in the world and the sincerity of his message to Eve.
He is also decidedly here in support of de Armas, letting her stand out in her own movie. After shining in the Bond film No Time to Die, de Armas proves herself an unstoppable juggernaut in Ballerina.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.