REVIEW:
Ballerina is the first spin-off movie from the John Wick series. That character, Wick, and his first movie spawned three sequels already and now with a spin-off movie featuring a new character, the world of this character and these assassins just expands even more. It’s pretty great. Especially since the movie itself, Ballerina, is good. This is the first movie in the series that wasn’t directed by Chad Stayhelski, the former stunt-man turned director, who not only directed all four Wick movies, but also wrote them. As such, it was easy to think that maybe the action wouldn’t be as good, or as plentiful. Something like the other recent action movies in the field these days, The Amateur or the Accountant 2. Not the case. Ballerina very much feels like a Wick movie, complete with the same music, tone, and most of all, the same amount of action.
The second fear I had about this movie going in, was that maybe Wick, himself, would not be used enough. Like maybe he would just have a one-scene cameo, and we would walk away feeling cheated that the trailers kept showing him when he was barely in the movie. Once again, this was wrong. Wick has a significant part in this film. And the places where he is inserted are perfect too. Once early on in the film, and then again at the end, for a solid amount of time.
That brings me to my first fear, or doubt about the movie. That maybe this film wouldn’t connect that well to the Wick movies and that the place where this movie fits into the Wick timeline would be unclear. Unfortunately this fear came true. The first time Wick appears, with our protagonist, Eve, at the Ruska Roma ballet training theater, it is perfect. The scene is another look at a scene from John Wick 3, now taken from a different point of view. That really establishes exactly when this part of the Ballerina movie takes place in the Wick timeline. If only the later John Wick moments did the same.
When Wick appears later on in the film, it is meant to take place somewhere between Wick chapter 3 and 4. Only let’s think about that for a moment. John Wick three ended with him falling off a building, and having to slowly build his way back from recovery. John Wick 4 started with him recovered and ready to get back out there, into the world. It literally started with him still training and recovering. So how is Wick appearing in Ballerina supposed to take place in between those two movies, when the only thing happening in between those two movies was Wick recovering? What would have made more sense, was if we saw Wick training and recovering, hitting the punching bag with bandage around his firsts and the Bowery King (Lawrence Fishbourne,) asking if he was ready to get back, and Wick saying, “Yeah,” and then the call coming in from the Ruska Roma about them needing him to do a job. And so he went off to do the job before heading to the desert to find the One Who Sits Above the High Table, which is where the fourth movie starts. That would have helped us properly fit the puzzle piece that is the movie Ballerina into place.
But aside from its weak job at placing in this movie into the context of the other Wick films, pretty much everything here is good. The villain, played by Gabriel Byrne, is fine. The story of this Cult, that Eve’s father was a part of, works. And so does the way that she spends the movie tracking down the cult, first going after an assassin who she finds out the cult is targeting themselves (played by Norman Reedus of the Walking Dead.) From there, Eve visits an arms dealer who she believes might be able to lead her in the right direction. When the cult shows up and blows up his store, he decides to help her after all. And that leads us to the small mountainous town, where the final portion of the film takes place, with everyone living in the town being an assassin who is after Eve. It kind of reminds me of the end of Hot Fuzz, where all of these regular-looking townsfolk turn out to be secret assassins with full armors at their instantaneous disposal.
The movies action and set pieces are never quite as good as those of John Wick, but they come pretty close. If anything, this one is closest to the first movie in terms of how good the action is. That is to say that each Wick movie since, just kept building up the action and the locations. For this movie, the coolest location is the mountain town ending. And we get plenty of cool weapons scenes and moments, involving one with grenades, one with an ice skate, and of course, the flamethrower shoot out. This happens to be a very good movie, perhaps even better than the last Wick film (that one lost lots of points for being so long, whereas this movie comes in at just the right amount of time.)