If you thought the motivations and depth of character of John Wick in the John Wick movies were flimsy, wait until you see the ballerina in Ballerina, who is given about a note and a half to play as a vengeance-driven young woman who trains to be a super-assassin in toe shoes. While the movie steadfastly refuses to make the most of Ana de Armas’ talent as an actress, it does revel in putting her in one ridiculously violent situation after another.
One imagines screenwriter Shay Hatten (Rebel Moon) spinning a big Wheel of Weapons that would land on “hand grenades” or “flame-thrower” or “dishware,” leading him to craft novel ways for de Armas to implement these deadly items. The fight scenes are all Ballerina has going for it, but they’re frequent, varied, and clever enough to make watching the film a worthy summer pastime.
Several of these battles take place on frozen, slippery surfaces, leading to the hope that the next iteration of this successful franchise will be a touring “John Wick” ice-dancing extravaganza. That’s ridiculous, of course, yet no less absurd than this film series’ universe of chic, deadly assassins with their own secret currency, chain of luxury hotels, and tattooed secretarial pools. This is a world that’s had its tongue fairly firmly in its cheek since the moment that the murder of an adorable doggy pulled world-class killer John Wick (Keanu Reeves) out of retirement.
Wick pops up periodically in this sequel to remind us of the film’s lineage — Reeves’ appearances carry about as much heft as Vin Diesel’s out-of-nowhere cameo at the end of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift — but our protagonist this time is Eve (de Armas). As a child, her father was murdered by members of a mysterious cult of killers known by the X branded upon their wrists. Their leader is the Chancellor, played by Gabriel Byrne, who gets terribly de-aged for Eve’s traumatic flashback.
The orphaned girl is swept up by Wick regular Winston (Ian McShane) and deposited at a ballet school/assassin academy overseen by the Director (Anjelica Huston); Huston knows how to judge a screenplay, and she has clearly deemed this one worthy of only her campiest performance, puffing cigars and barking orders in a barely-decipherable accent. (She sounds like a citizen of what novelist Neal Stephenson once called “Croatobaltoslavonia.”)
Once Eve is sent out into the field as a killer — it’s never clear whether she or any of her classmates are also expected to dance professionally — she soon happens upon someone branded with the X, setting her in pursuit of the Chancellor, despite warnings from the Director and others not to disturb the centuries-old détente between crime families. (Or, really, assassin families, since homicide seems to be the sole activity, not to mention the entire basis of the economy, of these characters.) It all leads to a final battle in a quaint, snowy Bohemian village, complete with killer-cult kindergarten, where Eve faces off with the X gang and learns some shocking truths about her past.
The moments between the fights are slack and unengaging, but luckily Ballerina makes sure that the next confrontation is only minutes away. Director Len Wiseman (the Underworld series) doesn’t have the ambition or facility to accomplish the mano-à-mano-mania of the Wick movies, but he and his fight choreographers are very crafty about putting de Armas (and her doubles) into small spaces and giving her unusual implements (that Wheel of Weapons also has a slot for ice skates and a kitchen knife taped to the handle of a gun) to use on her enemies.
Ballerina comes off as so disinterested in the plot that it ends without even trying to set up a sequel, which is usually the bare minimum for a movie like this. Still, it lives up to its name, balletic and rousing as the étoile dispenses with her corps des assassins.
Director: Len Wiseman
Screenwriter: Shay Hatten, based on characters created by Derek Kolstad
Cast: Ana de Armas, Anjelica Huston, Gabriel Byrne, Lance Reddick, Catalina Sandina Moreno, Norman Reedus, Ian McShane, Keanu Reeves
Producers: Basil Iwanyk, Erica Lee, Chad Stahelski
Executive producers: Kaley Smalley Romo, Louise Rosner, Kevan Van Thompson
Cinematographer: Romain Lacourbas
Production design: Philip Ivey
Editing: Jason Ballantine, Julian Clarke
Music: Tyler Bates, Joel J. Richard
Sound design: Casey Genton, supervising sound editor/re-recording mixer
Production companies: Lionsgate, Thunder Road, 87eleven
In English
125 minutes
