John Wick might have faced a lot of enemies over the years, but even he didn’t have to deal with the most formidable enemy that Ballerina has already faced: Film Twitter.
Last month, critics in the US were (rightly) annoyed by odd wording on the social media embargo for the new movie that allowed “spoiler-free enthusiasm”, but not “critical social sentiment” until a few weeks’ time. It was soon clarified after the backlash that any reaction, as with any movie with a social media embargo, was allowed.
If you’ve followed the industry for long enough, you’ll know that first reactions are typically quite glowing; it’s rare a movie is given an absolute kicking in early reactions as studios can set a later embargo (or not screen at all). They’re always to be taken with a pinch of salt, but even if you know that, you’ll still be sceptical about Ballerina as a result of this backlash.
But now that Ballerina is here and the embargo – for enthusiasm or otherwise – is up, you’ll mostly wonder why this particular movie was the subject of such a backlash.
Because the truth is Ballerina is perfectly fine, often really good even, and would likely have been received warmly. There’s plenty here for John Wick fans to savour from its near-constant action, and it’s a far more successful expansion of the franchise than the dull TV prequel The Continental.
What actually ends up letting the side down, unexpectedly, is the John Wick of it all. We never thought it was possible to have too much of a good thing, but with Ballerina, you’ll be wishing there was less of Keanu Reeves’ iconic dog-loving assassin and, weirdly, less action.
Set during the events of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, Ballerina introduces us to Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas), who was taken in by the Ruska Roma following the death of her father, turning her into a deadly assassin.
It’s the same ballet/assassin training school we first saw in Chapter 3, run by the Director (Anjelica Huston) who has only one rule for Eve: she cannot seek vengeance for her father’s death. “When you deal in blood, there must be rules otherwise nothing survives,” she tells Eve, but of course Eve doesn’t listen.
Luckily for Eve, like John Wick before her, she has the help of Winston (Ian McShane) and Charon (Lance Reddick, in his final on-screen role) to call on. She’s soon digging into her past to put herself on a collision course with the person responsible for her father’s death.
Along the way, Eve has to use all of her Ruska Roma training to survive – and there are a lot of opportunities to show off her skills. Even for a John Wick movie, Ballerina is stuffed full of action sequences and once it gets going, it barely comes up for breath to the detriment of its own plot at times.
One particular revelation is thrown out within a minute (and we might have been generous with that estimate), while other supporting characters barely get one note of development before they’re thrown into action.
They’re not the kind of extended action set pieces of the John Wick movies either, where each single sequence gets crazier and crazier. Instead, Ballerina has a lot of shorter fights with only a few minutes, if that, between them. While they’re often impressive set pieces, the effect is a bit deadening as Eve takes down yet another wave of enemies.
The much-advertised fight between Eve and John Wick also ends up being a bit of a damp squib in comparison to the rest. We know Eve can’t kill him, since it’s set before Chapter 4, and we (probably) know Wick wouldn’t kill her, so it’s dramatically inert. It could be taken out without any impact to Ballerina and highlights a wider issue.
Wick ends up playing a bigger role in the final act than you might expect, and it takes the focus from Eve. The early crossover at the ballet school (as seen in the trailers) is all it needed since there’s enough Wick-ian touches elsewhere to firmly set the movie in the unique world of John Wick.
Eve might not be as impactful of a character as Wick, but Ana de Armas is impressive enough in the role to not need the support. When Eve is wielding a flamethrower like a gun or using grenades in very creative ways, you don’t miss Wick one bit and it’s a shame so much focus has been drawn to the Eve/Wick confrontation rather than Eve herself.
A tighter focus on Eve would have gone a long way to solve the messy plot where an action sequence has been used to paper over the narrative cracks.
The John Wick series has always delivered notable characters outside of Wick – such as Zero in Chapter 3, Caine in Chapter 4, or even the despicable Iosef in the first movie – but Ballerina only just about manages to make Eve notable. The less said about Ballerina‘s dull villain, the better too.
If all you want is two hours of action that’s worthy of the John Wick series though, then Ballerina will prove an ideal watch as it has some excellent set pieces that are stylishly executed. It’s just a frustration that not everything else is en pointe.
Ballerina is released in cinemas on 6 June.
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Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
