★★★★½
“If the ballet slipper fits…”
When I reviewed Furiosa, I discussed how action heroine films have been having a tough time at the box-office since before COVID-19. Add another data point to that decline, with the underwhelming performance of Ballerina. Or, to give it its clunky and excessive full title (for the first and only time), From the World of John Wick: Ballerina. Which – much like Furiosa – is a real shame, because it’s top-tier stuff. The critics liked it (76% on Rotten Tomatoes) and those who saw it, liked it too (93% audience score there). But it just did not seem to connect in a large-scale way with the cinema-going public, and will struggle to cover its $90 million budget, not excessive by today’s standards.
Admittedly, it was a rather troubled production. Filming began all the way back in November 2022, and it was in post-production the following February. But a year later, word came out that additional shooting under John Wick director Chad Stahelski was taking place. There’s uncertainty how significant those were. Suggestions that much of the film was redone have been denied by both Stahelski and Wiseman, who said they were actually due to the studio providing them with additional resources. This allowed them to add scenes, such as the opening depicting the death of the heroine’s father. But regardless, the extra work was certainly a factor in the film being pushed back a full twelve months from its original release date of June 2024.
To be honest though, I really couldn’t tell based on the end product. I have read a lot of criticism suggesting, in brief, “Nobody asked for this.” While that’s dumb – nobody asked for John Wick either – there is an element of truth in it. If they wanted a spin-off, they might have been better using Sofia Al-Azwar, the existing character played by Halle Berry, who was key to one of the best scenes in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. It’s worth noting, the script by Shay Hatten, written back in 2017, was not originally part of the Wick universe (although Hatten was inspired by the trailer for John Wick 2), and subsequently got tooled into it. But I wonder, how often are spin-off movies ever successful? Ok, except the Minions franchise.
It’s not the first effort to expand the Wick-iverse which has fallen short either. In 2023, they made a TV mini-series The Continental, which… Um, well… We watched the first episode? You’re certainly left to wonder what might happen about the other spin-off film, focused on Caine, the blind swordman played by Donnie Yen in John Wick 4. We love Yen, and have since the days of In the Line of Duty IV, over 35 years ago. But he has a much lower profile in the West than Ana de Armas, and the appetite for films “from the world of John Wick” which do not have Wick front and center, certainly appears to be muted. Enough about such coarse, commercial considerations. How is Ballerina as a movie?
In this world, there are two specific tribes of assassins. The Ruska Roma, who are structured and orderly, and another group, known as the Cult, who are anarchic and savage. Lawful Neutral and Chaotic Evil, for those who know their D&D alignments. The two groups don’t get along, but generally tolerate each other, basically agreeing to go their separate ways and not interfere, under the current leadership of the Director (Huston) and the Chancellor (Byrne) respectively. A decade or so ago, there was Romeo and Juliet-style romance across the divided houses, resulting in the birth of Eve. When her parents tries to leave their factions, both are killed, her father dying in front of her after being killed by the Cult. She is then brought up in the Ruska Roma.
Eve (de Armas) is trained both as an assassin and a ballerina, although the latter is never of any real significance. On one of her missions, she encounters a Cult member and realizes they are responsible for killing her father. Against the express wishes of the Director, she goes in search of them, finding their headquarters in the remote (and very lovely) Austrian town of Hallstatt, and chewing her way through the Cult towards the Chancellor. But when the Director hears about Eve’s quest for vengeance, posing a threat to the uneasy truce between the Ruska Roma and the Cult, she sends a certain J. Wick (Reeves) after her, to restore the balance and keep the peace.
It’s borderline awesome, and on occasion, there’s no “borderline” about it. Let’s just say, I will now be looking into acquiring a flamethrower for home defense. Ok, I should explain. There’s a scene where Eve and one of the Cult members have a – bold font, capital letters, please – DUEL WITH FLAMETHROWERS. It’s every bit as epic and wonderful as that sounds, and it escapes me how they could possibly have achieved it, without reducing the entire stunt team to charcoal briquettes. That’s just the action highlight in a film which has a number of them. I was also impressed with the nightclub sequence – is this obligatory for every film in the Wick-iverse? – of Eve’s first mission, as much for the thumping techno tunes, as for the high-quality fisticuffs.
I do say, some elements feel under-developed, and I wonder if they were a result of the adjustments made during production. The character of Daniel Pine (Norman Reedus), seems particularly an afterthought, not least the fact he’s supposed to be the Chancellor’s son. Adding John Wick in does feel like an unnecessary afterthought and, to be honest, smells a little of desperation. It’s just not necessary, because de Armas is capable of carrying things. This is likely, not just to be the best action heroine film of the year, it’s quite possibly – admittedly, I haven’t seen the last Mission Impossible film yet – going to end up as the best action film of 2025. Such a pity it appears likely to be one and done for this tiny dancer.
Dir: Len Wiseman
Star: Ana de Armas, Gabriel Byrne, Anjelica Huston, Keanu Reeves