Ballerina places Ana de Armas within the highlight But can she outgun John Wick?

Positioned neatly between #John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum and Chapter 4, Ballerina follows a brand new murderer with pointe footwear and a vendetta, performed by #Ana de Armas. It desires to deepen the John mythos with a female contact and emotional weight, however finally ends up oscillating between promising detours and recycled chaos. Stylish, sure. Coherent? Not all the time.

As a baby, Eve Macarro (performed in her youthful years by Victoria Comte) witnesses her father’s brutal homicide by a cult led by the icy and inscrutable Chancellor (#Gabriel Byrne). She’s whisked away by Winston (#Ian McShane) to the #Ruska Roma—a ballet school-slash-hitman manufacturing facility overseen by the iron-willed Director (#Anjelica Huston). There, Eve learns arabesques, handguns, and learn how to flip a pair of ice skates into weapons of mass destruction.

Years later, when Eve acknowledges a well-known image on considered one of her targets, she disobeys orders and embarks on a revenge spree that threatens a longstanding truce between her group and the Chancellor’s. What follows is a path of carnage resulting in a snow-covered village filled with cultists, one morally ambiguous hitman (#Norman Reedus), and a last showdown involving flamethrowers, grenades, and extra bruised larynxes than dialogue exchanges.

The good

#Ana de Armas is clearly the movie’s MVP. With her understated calm and crisp physicality, she brings a compelling display presence to Eve—even when the script forgets to provide her character precise layers. The motion, particularly a 20-minute mid-film sequence that performs with construction and stakes, affords a glimpse of what the spin-off may have been if it weren’t tethered so tightly to the Wick playbook.

Visually, the movie is as slick as you’d count on. Neon-drenched nightclubs, Eastern European rooftops, and dimly lit safehouses all appear to be they’re borrowed from a classy fever dream. The choreography, executed by a group of Wick alumni, delivers some technically sharp set items—even when we’ve seen a lot of them earlier than.

And whereas its thematic flirtation with “feminine” violence—utilizing mind and agility over brute energy—is extra talked about than proven, there’s a minimum of an try and carve out a brand new identification. Plus, the ultimate monitor titled Fight Like a Girl by #Evanescence and Ok.Flay is the sort of bombastic nearer you count on from a movie that confuses ballet slippers with brass knuckles.

The dangerous

Despite its greatest efforts to face by itself toes, Ballerina retains falling again into the John Wick method like a dancer repeatedly slipping off pointe. The revenge arc, meant to gas Eve’s transformation, is sketched so thinly it barely registers. Emotional beats are hinted at after which dropped sooner than a spent journal.

While the movie suggests Eve ought to “fight differently,” the choreography tells a special story. The punches, the shootouts, the nightclub brawls—they’re practically similar to scenes in John Wick’s saga, simply with a barely completely different manicure. Even the digital camera actions really feel like déjà vu, solely with much less polish within the enhancing bay.

#Norman Reedus’s cameo looks like a setup for a special, extra attention-grabbing film. And Keanu Reeves, whereas current, principally drops in to grunt, reload, and remind us of how properly he wears a bulletproof go well with.

The verdict

Ballerina isn’t a foul movie. It’s only a acquainted one sporting a special costume. There are sparks of originality, and #Ana de Armas proves she will lead an motion franchise—however the film stays conflicted about whether or not it desires to honour the John Wick legacy or evolve from it.

At its greatest, it’s a brisk, bloody spin-off with model to spare. At its worst, it’s a canopy model of a John Wick hit single, performed simply barely off-beat. Ballet could also be about grace, precision, and management—Ballerina has two of these issues. Just not all the time in the correct order.