It’s easy to forget that the original John Wick was once destined for the direct-to-video trash pile. With a script originally titled Scorn and a lead that hadn’t had a box office hit in years, the Keanu Reeves assassin thriller might have been doomed to be a forgotten B-movie left to collect dust at the bottom of a Walmart bin. But then a title change and a theatrical release turned John Wick into a sleeper hit, and later, a cultural phenomenon. Now, it’s hard to imagine the contemporary action movie landscape without John Wick and the many, many knockoffs it inspired. But if you ever wondered what the original direct-to-video, forgotten B-movie version of John Wick might’ve been, the answer has come in the form of the Ana de Armas-led spinoff, Ballerina.
Ballerina comes into the world with a hand somewhat tied behind its back. The first feature film spinoff from the John Wick franchise, this movie comes two years after John Wick (supposedly) dies in John Wick: Chapter 4 and features a lead character who is totally new to the franchise. It has a confusing place in the timeline too: between 2019’s John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum and Chapter 4, making it feel stuck between being an odd coda to John Wick’s story and a weird prequel. But perhaps most damning, it’s the first movie in the franchise to not be directed by Chad Stahelski, with Underworld director Len Wiseman at the helm instead. This is the thing that ultimately makes or breaks Ballerina. Despite a terrific lead turn from Ana de Armas, without Stahelski’s heightened visual touch elevating the movie from its B-movie trappings, Ballerina feels like an overwhelmingly generic action flick. At worst, it feels like another John Wick knockoff, at best it feels like an inconsequential side quest for John Wick before he goes onto his final, doomed revenge quest.
Ballerina opens with a young Eve Macarro (Victoria Comte) and her father (David Castañeda) under attack by a group of assassins who accuse her father of treachery. Her father dies protecting her, and Eve vows revenge on the group that murdered him — with the assassins’ shared scar as her only clue. Twelve years later, Eve (de Armas) has become the rising star of the Ruska Roma, a group of guardian-assassins who moonlight as ballerinas. While on assignment, Eve is attacked by a man bearing the same scar as her father’s murderers, and her thirst for revenge is renewed. Against the orders of the Director (Angelica Huston), she embarks on a quest to find the organization that murdered her father, which she discovers is actually a cult. She soon finds herself wrapped up in a conspiracy involving a defector of the cult (Norman Reedus), his young daughter, and a seemingly idyllic Scandinavian town governed by the ruthless Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne), who may hold the answer to Eve’s mysterious past.
With a clunky surtitle like From the World of John Wick, it’s no surprise that Ballerina feels overly indebted to the world-building parts of John Wick. And while that element undoubtedly is what helped elevate John Wick from its B-movie compatriots — the idea of a thriving underworld of assassins with codes and hotels and tattoos is cool as hell — it’s another thing to make a movie centered around that. For the first two-thirds of its runtime, Ballerina hits all the familiar beats of a John Wick movie: we’ve got the revenge story; the nightclub fight scene; the intra-assassin politicking; and of course an appearance from our favorite Continental staff, Winston Scott (Ian McShane) and Charon (Lance Reddick, in his final film role). But because our main character is basically an assassin ingénue, it doesn’t pack the same punch. Eve’s story, from her training arc and quest for revenge, feel closer to the underwhelming female-led assassin movies that came out in the wake of Atomic Blonde. And because the movie frequently dances around John Wick’s presence — including not one, but two appearances from Reeves — the film ultimately feels like a sidequest in a John Wick video game, one in which we play as a character invented purely to allow us to live the experience of meeting John Wick.
Not all is lost in Ballerina, though. Ana de Armas is one of our most charismatic movie stars working today. Though Eve feels only a step or two removed from her other assassin/agent roles in Bond and The Gray Man, de Armas infuses the role with a raw anger and desperation that elevates her above the many forgettable female assassins littering our post-Atomic Blonde landscape. Her petite stature allows for the film to stage some exciting, innovative fight sequences too. Early in the film, Eve is told that she will always be smaller or weaker than her opponents, so she must get creative — and the film does too. One particularly thrilling fight scene involves creative use of ice skates, and another breathtaking sequence heavily features a flamethrower. It’s during these climactic fight sequences, and the mysterious Scandinavian town where they take place, when the film comes alive, breaking from its John Wick-indebted shadow and starting to forge its own path. But then Reeves returns, to remind you of how much you loved the John Wick movies.
The best and worst parts of Ballerina feel like problems of the film’s own design — it’s clear that Stahelski, who came on board to helm reshoots — had a hand in crafting the film’s best fight sequences, alongside Eve’s fight with John Wick. But anytime John Wick shows up, it takes the wind out of the movie’s sails, and takes the focus away from Eve.
There are glimmers of greatness that make you yearn for a movie that was confident enough to stand on its own and give de Armas the spotlight she deserves. But until Ballerina can go without that clunky surtitle, it seems that de Armas’ potential is trapped by “The World of John Wick” and all that it entails.
