‘Ballerina’ review: Emptying the clip

Lionsgate stretches the John Wick franchise just a little too thin with the half bloody, half boring Ballerina.

In case you haven’t heard, Ballerina is “From the world of John Wick.” If that somehow slipped by you, don’t worry because Lionsgate has taken painstaking efforts to ensure that the spinoff to its bullet-riddled box-office hit reminds its audience that they are, in fact, watching a John Wick movie. And it’s not just the elaborate gun play or the brutal fight choreography or the secret world of well-dressed assassins: there’s two visits to two different Continental hotels, gratuitous cameos from side characters, a visit to a weapons sommelier, and no less than three visits from Keanu Reeves himself.

These kinds of callbacks happen all the time in today’s Hollywood blockbusters (just ask the Marvel Cinematic Universe). But it’s easy to tell when these in-universe references feel…forced. If a movie is trying to establish a new character (chiefly the one in the title of the movie) to stand out in a franchise, shoving the old character (who died in the last film) back into the events for no reason other than a reference is very unnecessary. Especially when the titular Ballerina actually starts to establish its own identity through a riveting discovery: violent absurdity.

Before that, we have to get through a less riveting inevitability: the plot. The titular Ballerina is Eve (Ana de Armas), who witnessed the killing of her father after a home invasion by an ominous old man (Gabriel Byrne) and a team of trained killers. With Continental owner Winston (Ian McShane) taking her in, Eva trains to be a killer with the Ruska Roma crime syndicate and its boss (Anjelica Huston). She then starts finding clues to the people who killed her father and goes rogue to hunt them down.

Shooting blanks.

Considering John Wick: Chapter 4 was a mammoth 169 minutes, it is a blessing to have Ballerina come in at just 125 minutes. It may not feel like a blessing at first while sitting through the first 30 minutes of bland backstory and routine world-building. Ballerina isn’t all boring blather (thankfully), but it’s a telling sign of a movie’s quality when its energy stops dead every time people start speaking. While clever dialogue and engaging plots were never the highlights of John Wick movies, they were presented in such a stylized way (via lavish sets and vibrant cinematography) that it acted as a cozy rest between the barrage of bullets. The main problem seems to be director Len Wiseman (Underworld, Live Free or Die Hard), who lets the lines just play out with no emphasizing style accentuating the menacing threats, shocking plot reveals, and action one-liners.

Wiseman doesn’t give the actors much else to work with. de Armas has proven that she has screen presence and charisma, especially in No Time to Die. But either because the Wick world is too stoic for her or Wiseman didn’t know what he had, de Armas looks lost trying to stand out amongst the gun play and throbbing techno music. She (and her stunt team) are selling the punches and melee weapons being thrown during fight scenes but, again, all of that energy shoots out the window every time de Armas has to give or take dialogue. Same goes for the rest of the cast, whether it’s series veterans like McShane and the late great Lance Reddick, or new members like Byrne and Norman Reedus (The Walking Dead). As for Reeves, this is the first time I’ve heard a packed theater laugh at his minimal line delivery rather than with it.

Wacky warfare.

Reading the review up to this point, might have you worried that the bland acting and boring story suck all the fun out of this John Wick adventure. Not true. After passing the abysmal first 30 minutes, Ballerina kicks into high gear with de Armas getting brutally thrown around by bad guys before charging through them like a hurricane. Despite franchise tradition, Ballerina actually has some scenes where de Armas has to cleverly fight her way out without using bullets. She has to survive her first assignment using only rubber bullets, then she can’t shoot anyone on Continental hotel grounds unless she wants a slug to the head from the concierge. Even in the weapons sommelier shop with plenty of rounds and triggers to use, she ends up scrounging around backrooms and storage closets for random tools and hand grenades in boxes.

In fact, Ballerina has a secret weapon laced in many of its very entertaining fights: slapstick comedy. The Continental fight ends with nods to Buster Keaton and The Three Stooges. Later, the much-hyped flamethrower face-off starts with a scene straight out of The Naked Gun…but with flamethrowers. There’s even a moment where de Armas and an opponent in a kitchen just keep throwing plates at each other’s heads to reach the pistol buried under all the debris. Who knows if all of this was in the original cut or were thrown in during the reshoots helmed by franchise father Chad Stahelski. What matters is that it gives Ballerina some sorely needed sparks of creativity and ridiculousness that helped the original Wick movies become iconic in the first place.

The bottom line.

There’s a real push-pull feeling when it comes to Ballerina. Props to the franchise’s stunt team for continuing to push the envelope when it comes to gun fu fight scenes and any chance for a female-led action franchise is something to celebrate. Despite the riveting and ridiculous action on display, bad pacing and a worse director keep pulling Ballerina to the depths of mediocrity. It’s a joy to see de Armas throw hammers and shove a grenade into someone’s jaw, but a miserable slog every time she has to endure plot exposition. If the John Wick franchise is to continue, Stahelski and co. need to trim the fat in its world and find that sweet spot of physical intensity and logical insanity that brought Mr. Wick into the game in the first place.

Ballerina hits theaters Friday, June 6. Watch the trailer here.

Photos courtesy of Murray Close and Lionsgate. Read more articles by Jon Winkler here.

Jon Winkler