“From the World of John Wick” we get Ballerina, the latest shoot-em-up action movie. A reasonably competent addition to the franchise, this movie probably won’t knock your socks off with anything new, but it will scratch the itch for big action, violent action, and criminal underworld double-dealing.
When Eve (Ana De Armas) is just a young girl, she is witness to the violent murder of her father at the hands of a mysterious cult of assassins. On the heels of this trauma, the renowned manager of the Continental Hotel, Winston (Ian McShane), finds her and recruits her into the Ruska Roma, the very same tribe of killers and criminals that took in John Wick when he was a boy. At the capable hands of the Director (Angelica Huston), Eve fashions herself into a Kikimora, a combination assassin/protector with the skills to decide between life and death. As Eve is working her first jobs in her new profession, she finds herself embroiled in a scheme involving the very same group of assassins who killed her father, and she sets off on a mission of revenge. Even when faced with the most frightening force in her universe, in the shape of John Wick himself, Eve will have to decide if she can give up her quest for vengeance in the name of peace, or if she is willing to fight even to the bitter end to achieve satisfaction.
Ballerina is set, as the name implies, in the John Wick universe and contains basically all of the building blocks and expected beats of the preceding movies. This isn’t simply a story unfolding in the same universe. The movie takes place within the timeline of the original couple of Wick movies, and many of the Wick characters are front and center, including the titular hitman himself. The basic plot is a heavy retread of many other similar movies. Child sees parents killed, child goes through training montage to gain incredible skills, grown child goes on revenge mission. Nothing new here, but no one was expecting tons of plot creativity. The action is good, and the acting is about what you’d expect. The writing is a little rushed and doesn’t quite carry the emotional heft of the first Wick, but again, that’s not what you come to these movies for. DeArmas is decently credible as an action heroine. As usual, the cinematography and scenery are beautiful, and the fight scenes and stunts are pretty well put together, although the extended scenes of people getting burned alive with a flame thrower might push it a bit if you step outside the movie-going experience for a second to think about what that really would be like.
Overall, Ballerina is precisely what you would expect from another entry in the same franchise. No new ground broken. Not particularly creative or new. But packed with action, fights, guns, and violence. Definitely not for kids. If the rest of the Wick movies were your cup of tea, you’ll probably like this one as well.
