Following lengthy delays, some related to development, others not atypically, to production-side issues, including two or three months of reshoots, Ballerina (officially “From the World of John Wick: Ballerina”) arrives in theaters with a mix of anticipation and dread, specifically from John Wick fans understandably protective about an action franchise defined by the charismatic presence of its brooding leading man, Keanu Reeves, as the title character, a ruthlessly efficient, near unstoppable ex-assassin forced out of retirement and into a bloodily impressive, four-film, multi-continent killing spree, its cinematically pure, stripped-down approach to storytelling, and action-oriented, ground-level set pieces second to none.
Set primarily between the events of John Wick 3 – Parabellum and John Wick 4, the last, but not final, film, in the Reeves-led series, Ballerina follows the title character, Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas), a onetime ballet dancer, full-time assassin for the Ruska Roma, who, like Wick in the first entry, finds herself a woman alone, single-mindedly pursuing a potentially disastrous mission for vengeance (Wick’s dog in the first film, Eve’s fallen father here). Over the better part of two, occasionally slack, mostly taught hours, Eve breaks all manner of esoteric rules, runs afoul of directives from her superiors, and not unexpectedly, separates roughly 357 souls from their earthly bodies, all, of course, as part of Eve’s Righteous Rampage of Revenge.
Ballerina opens with a narratively redundant, if well-directed, prologue centered on a preteen Eve (Victoria Comte), her soon-to-expire father, Javier (David Castañeda), and an unsuccessful attempt to escape the clutches of a rival group of assassins off the coast of an unnamed country. Long-haired and bearded, the ill-fated Javier resembles a Latin-American John Wick, albeit with an obvious expiration date, while Eve, far from the skilled, assured assassin we’ll meet later, watches in stunned disbelief as her father loses his life to a villainous cult leader known only as the Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne).
Film-long motivation for revenge set, Ballerina skips ahead a dozen years as Eve, now a ward of the Ruska Roma, trains as both a ballerina and an assassin. Unsurprisingly, she proves a significantly better assassin than a ballerina, and after suitable training and preparation, goes on her first, successful mission, not to assassinate anyone in particular, but to serve as the unofficial bodyguard to a visiting dignitary’s twenty-something daughter, Katla Park (Sooyoung Choi), at a high-end, neon-lit nightclub.
Cue, finally, Eve in action mode, as mercenaries attempt to kidnap Katla, presumably for ransom. It’s the first excuse among many for Eve — and, by extension, de Armas — to prove herself John Wick’s approximate equal. Though mostly a close-combat fighter, Eve handles herself just as adroitly with firearms, though in a first of many twists on the Wick formula, she’s forced to use rubber bullets on Katla’s relentlessly persistent wannabe abductors.
That’s just a taste, of course, of what’s to come. Once Eve uncovers a clue as to her father’s killer and later, his location, Ballerina slips more readily into John Wick mode: A smattering of plot, a few brief exchanges of dialogue, and a series of increasingly elaborate set pieces. Once Eve arrives at an alpine village in Europe, she finds herself at a distinct disadvantage, minus recognizable allies and facing potential foes in every direction and around every corner.
Arriving as it does after an hour crammed with unnecessary exposition and an over-emphasis on lore, the late-film narrative shift to the well-fortified, well-armed alpine village and an Eve forced to improvise with whatever she can find (e.g., axes, knives, flamethrowers) just to survive the night. The constantly shifting setting gives the stunt team a welcome opportunity to flex their creative muscles (among other things), in effect turning an otherwise middling addition to the John Wick universe into the best — or its close approximation —of the series.
While the nominal director, Len Wiseman (Total Recall, the Underworld series), certainly deserves credit for the results onscreen, it’s stunt-choreographer-turned-director Chad Stahelski who deserves the most, before (as a key producer and action choreographer), during, and after the end of principal photography. Stahelski handled or supervised the bulk of reshoots, specifically action-oriented sequences, and it shows both in their organic similarities to earlier entries in the series and their differences, specifically in how they take advantage of de Armas’ physicality for maximum impact without undermining all-important believability.
Almost as importantly, Ballerina unequivocally succeeds as both an action-oriented, star vehicle for de Armas and an expansion of her viability beyond dramatic or comedic roles. Setting aside her tantalizing cameo in No Time to Die and the already forgotten Ghosted, de Armas has been rarely asked to show audiences what else she can do beyond drama or comedy. If Ballerina proves anything, it proves that de Armas can truly do it all.
Ballerina opens theatrically on Friday, June 6th, via Lionsgate.
