Movie Review: ‘Ballerina’

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The John Wick franchise continues to expand beyond the original “revenge for the murder of a dog” premise, this time following the rise a female assassin/ballerina (who crosses path with John Wick and certain events from previous movies) as she seeks her own revenge against a cult leader for the death of her father. Overall, the movie is very entertaining and full of the over-the-top, thrilling, violent, and unbelievable fight scenes we have come to expect from a John Wick film.

Shifting focus to a new character in a franchise that is named after another character can be challenging. If you are going to promote it using John Wick, people might want to see John Wick; spoiler (if you haven’t seen the trailers) he does appear in a few scenes (my dad forgot about the trailers and was genuinely surprised to see Wick). The marketing for Ballerina won’t let you forget that this is connected to the John Wick movies and people in the theater screening that I attended literally cheered and applauded when John Wick returned for a fight scene. This film has a solid premise and could’ve stood on its own without the John Wick connections, but they are fun bonuses for fans of the overall series, so long as people understand that he is not the lead of this film.

The new lead character is Eve Macarro, portrayed by Ana de Armas (Knives Out, No Time to Die, Ghosted). Eve becomes an orphan in the first act and is subsequently recruited by Winston (Ian McShane, John Wick 1-4) to train with The Director (Anjelica Huston, John Wick 3) to become both a ballerina and an assassin. After her training (montage) is completed, she is sent on a few missions until she picks up the trail of the cult that killed her father. Eve isn’t as experienced as John Wick, but she is more than capable of overcoming severe damage and getting right back into the fight.

If you like Ana de Armas and/or the John Wick-style of action and fighting, you will probably enjoy this film. There are many cool stunts that I didn’t know I wanted to see (i.e. a person armed with a flamethrower fighting another person armed with a firehose). The cinematography, choreography, and scenery are all worth seeing in a theater. I look forward to maybe seeing more of Eve either in a sequel or in the main series.