From the World of John Wick feels like a crazy phrase to say out loud considering the franchise started as a revenge thriller about a man killing those responsible for killing his dog. That's where we are though after four successful John Wick films, with the spin-offs now starting with the release of Ballerina - a character who made a blink and you miss it appearance in the third John Wick film.
Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas), a ballerina-assassin, begins to train in the assassin traditions of the Ruska Roma and sets out to exact revenge for her father's death.
Ballerina comes with the usual bone-crunching and bombastic action we are used to seeing in the John Wick franchise, the little details in the action for both comedic and wince-inducing effect admirable. Eve, just like Wick himself, is a resourceful assassin and it just adds to the fun of it all as copious amounts of bad guys are dispatched in such differing fashion. There's a sequence with grenades which is glorious but it might be topped by a dance-like battle with flamethrowers. It's utterly ridiculous in places but that's part of the charm with these films, they embrace the silliness.
The pacing of the film suffers a little when slowed right down with a lot of the background lore and world-building, which only became larger and larger with each entry. Ballerina could have done with some time shaved off to keep it moving a little quicker but the wait is worth it eventually when the final act comes to a barnstorming finish.
The level of performances are what we are used to seeing in the franchise at this point, but it's Ana de Armas who showcases that she has what it takes to be a major action star because she kills it here as Eve. She's received such high praise in the action stakes from none other than Tom Cruise and she handles the physicality of it all in her stride. As a protagonist, she provides the film with more emotion than John Wick ever did across four films, based on the fact Ana de Armas is a better performer than Keanu Reeves. The man himself features more than expected, obviously to the benefit of the film but it's almost as if Reeves has forgotten how to speak normally these days.
I'm sure there will be more films in this franchise and I wouldn't be surprised if we got more Ballerina films in particular. She's a character who can more than hold her own in a franchise dominated by the male stars, plus it will be fun to see how many more ways they can think of to kill bad guys.
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