In Ballerina, Ana de Armis proves that absent a simple but powerful backstory—a dead dog—the John Wick universe isn’t nearly as compelling or as exciting to watch.
Despite solid action and a prettier-to-look-at protagonist, Ballerina (sorry, officially From the World of John Wick: Ballerina, god bless the marketing team) is a fairly generic and somewhat forgettable action-thriller that will prove to be a footnote to the broader John Wick franchise.
How many action movies have we seen where the lead is avenging their murdered parent years later? Or where an assassin sets out to save an innocent child? Ballerina’s story is a hodgepodge of narrative stereotypes, taped together by the lore of the John Wick universe (a lore I’ve never particularly liked, even though I am a huge fan of the main John Wick movies). Eve (de Armis) is likable and suitably deadly, but her character looks and feels like dozens of other action leads that have come and gone over the years, only to be filed away in the Forgettable Action Lead library, left to collect cobwebs. Eve may be spared such a fate, but should she get a sequel it’d be nice to see her further separate from John Wick and, you know, get her own identity.
There are two things that hold Ballerina back from being better, and the first is its adherence to the bigger franchise. Keanu Reeves makes more than one appearance in this title, and his presence feels forced and unnecessary. There have been much worse cameos over the history of cinema, but when Reeves shows up he mainly reminds you that you should be watching John Wick instead. That isn’t de Armis’s fault, but when you have her meeting with Swearengen and Lance Reddick at the Continental, training under the tutelage The Director (Anjelica Huston), who last appeared in John Wick 3, and going to night clubs and duking it out with legions of other assassins who all follow the same silly code the John Wick movies have spent way too much time establishing, nothing feels new.
Ballerina’s other problem is the action. In my opening, I described the movie as being “fairly generic and somewhat forgettable,” which in fairness to Ballerina is sort of harsh given that director Len Wiseman (Underworld) gives us a consistent dose of action that doesn’t feel that far afield from the action that skyrocketed John Wick from an indie action-thriller to a serious franchise. Compared to the action in a lot of action movies, the stunts, fights, and gun battles here are good.
However, compared to the other John Wick movies, the action is just par for the course.
Wiseman is no Chad Stahelski, it turns out, and the action on display in Ballerina simply feels a step slower, a few doses less aggressive than what we expect of this world. More so, what I loved about the John Wick movies is that it feels that with every entry, Stahelski has pushed to make our jaws drop a little more. While the original John Wick is my favorite (for its simplicity), John Wick 4 boasted three or four prolonged action sequences that are absolutely bonkers-good–they pushed the needle in terms of creativity, violence, or some combination of elements. They were downright memorable.
Ballerina has no such action scene. Sure, it has some good action, and the climax is pretty fun, but imagine what it would have been like had this been an actual John Wick movie with Stahelski at the helm. The climax would have been absolutely insane.
By putting itself in the same world as Keanu’s master assassin, Ballerina immediately operates at a disadvantage. Wiseman does a good job, but his inability to push the needle means that Eve will always be an understudy in her own movie.
Review by Erik Samdahl.