'Ballerina' Tumbles with Bloated Action and Empty Characters
'John Wick' without Wick fails to click.
I understand Lionsgate's desire to make more John Wick things without Keanu Reeves and director Chad Stahelski. The studio backed into the rarest of all things these days: an original IP that’s a massive success and one they own completely. They don’t want to be wholly dependent on two guys who have other things cooking. And yet despite the simple set-up of exquisite action within a luxurious world of assassins, the studio keeps hitting a dead-end with expanding the franchise, first with its TV series The Continental: From the World of John Wick and now with the film spinoff, Ballerina, which is set between the third and fourth John Wick movies. A limp imitation that somehow feels both bloated and hollow, Ballerina mistakes a deluge of action scenes for a personality.
The movie drags through an entire first act that feels like one long prologue as we meet Eve Maccaro (Ana de Armas), a young woman whose father was murdered by a mysterious gang led by the soft-spoken Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne). Raised by the Ruska Roma as a “Ballerina” (a group introduced in John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum), Eve is now a capable assassin in her own right. However, when she randomly encounters a member of the gang (whose attempt to kill her is never explained), she goes rogue to find out why these people killed her father and seeks revenge. This quest involves killing lots and lots of people.
I never thought I would long for the days of narrative simplicity, such as seeking revenge for killing a puppy (as seen in the first John Wick), but Ballerina sent me there. Every narrative choice feels wholly belabored yet uninspiring. With this much plot, we should gain some kind of texture or insight into Eve’s character, but instead, she remains firmly one-dimensional. That’s not to say that John Wick is Reeves’ richest character, but at least when we first meet him, he’s able to imply a well of pathos and experiences thanks to age and gravitas. Eve is a new assassin, and rather than use that as a way to give Ballerina a distinct personality, the film makes her nearly as capable as Wick but without any emotional weight.
De Armas had some heat coming off her Oscar nomination for Blonde, and franchises are a good way to stay in the public’s mind, so I get why she took on this project. But a role like this is borderline insulting to an actor of her talents, a character who only needs to look pretty and kick ass. Even the hint of any notes de Armas might get to play, such as Eve’s concern that she’s a born killer rather than someone who could have a normal life, are quickly overshadowed by the demands of the next action scene.
The movie bizarrely feels terrified to pause for even a few moments before running off into the next set piece, so there’s no room for anything to breathe or land. Moreover, the set pieces lack any kind of identity to make them particularly memorable. The John Wick series loves its marathon fights and shootouts, but they’re structured in such a way that you get a giddy thrill watching them play out. Nothing in Ballerina comes close to the stairs sequence in John Wick: Chapter 4 or the knife battle from Chapter 3. We get a gnarly kill here and there, but mostly Ballerina putters along without any sense of rhythm or style.
For instance, when Eve reaches the Chancellor’s home base, the film wants to play the dichotomy of a bunch of assassins living in what appears to be a quaint village. But because director Len Wiseman never thinks one step beyond that, the whole design still feels like an afterthought. This is a cult where everyone carves an “X” into their wrist to mark their allegiance, an ugly scar across their flesh, but then dresses in the village like they’re all from the L.L. Bean winter catalogue. Wiseman couldn’t even pick a color in their wardrobe to signify their status because that would take a moment of thoughtfulness, so Eve, dressed in black, fights people who are dressed in black and blue sweaters. The idea of having a cult hide in plain sight is neat, but neither their motives nor their operations make any sense.
What makes John Wick’s world appealing is that you want to peek around the corner to see what is happening in this lively world he inhabits. But Ballerina indicates that Wick is moving through Potemkin villages, and were you to look behind the operations of the Ruska Roma, you would see more bog-standard assassins rather than anything unique or compelling. This means instead of finding interesting characters or exciting stories, there’s only another action scene, which grows tiresome after a point. Instead of delivering on the promise of expanding the world of John Wick, Ballerina twirls furiously, hoping you’re dazzled enough by the movement to ignore how it’s not going anywhere.
Ballerina opens in theaters on June 6th.