Keanu Reeves is back as John Wick! Well, kind of. In the horribly titled From the World of John Wick: Ballerina, Reeves reprises his role as legendary hitman John Wick. This time around, he plays a supporting role to Eve (Ana de Armas), another assassin in the same organization. Including the adored character could have been a brilliant move, but instead, it serves up undercooked fan service while undermining the very essence of Ballerina.
Frankly, Ballerina was already rough. It feels like a movie that was shot multiple times and mushed together at the last minute, created like Frankenstein’s monster, hoping that you’ll be so distracted by grenade explosions and flamethrower duels that you won’t notice what you’re watching is a shoddy excuse for entertainment. It’s staggeringly incohesive. Heck, it’s so lazy that despite being called Ballerina, there’s not one iota of ballet incorporated in Eve’s fighting style!
In theory, the one thing that could redeem Ballerina is the chance to see John Wick back in action. Who doesn’t love Keanu Reeves beating up baddies with ease? The four previous John Wick movies made well over $1 billion worldwide. But featuring Wick so heavily in Ballerina actually makes the film worse, because each moment with Reeves on screen reminds you that Ballerina is lesser in every way than the rest of the entries in the franchise.
When we first see Wick, it’s a brief moment. Eve observes him walking down the stairs, talking about his dog. That could have been enough to connect their worlds: a fun cameo that doesn’t distract from Eve’s mission. But later in the film, Wick reappears in a key role. He’s tasked by the Director (Angelica Huston) to intervene in Eve’s mission after she goes rogue.
John Wick is someone easy to root for, a man who gave up the life of an assassin, until he was brought back into the unforgiving world after his dog was killed. He became a symbol of justice and righteousness. Watching him kick a-- and take names was a thrill.
Eve, however, gives us nothing to latch onto. Ana de Armas has wide, deer-like eyes that effectively evoke emotion, but the rest of her performance is vacant. All we know about Eve is that she wants to avenge her father’s death, and that she’ll kill anyone to achieve that goal.
That’s noble, but Ballerina doesn’t develop Eve’s character in any way. As such, Eve feels more like a cipher for rage than a real person; you could cast any actor as the character and the film wouldn’t be any different. Bringing Wick back into the fray only exacerbates this problem. When you finally have a character to root for, you start wishing that this were another John Wick movie, and not Ballerina.
When Wick fights Eve to stop her mission, Eve loses badly. She’s effortlessly bested by Wick, who only seems to be giving 50 percent to a fight that Eve pours herself into. But because Wick has his reservations about the organization they’re both connected to (you’ll need to see the other films to know this, because otherwise Wick’s decision makes no sense), he agrees to let her go.
If the point of this film is to see Eve thrive, why remind us that she’s practically useless in comparison to Wick? You’re watching a subpar action hero go through the motions, which is hardly captivating. Making Eve a more formidable foe to Wick could have gone a long way, but here it’s just a reminder how uninteresting the titular Ballerina is.
Perhaps most annoying about the Wick debacle is that after Wick easily defeats her in battle, he then plays guardian angel, helping her escape death multiple times. That includes in the film’s pivotal flamethrower fight, a duel Eve only wins because Wick shoots her enemy’s gas tank, resulting in a fiery explosion and the demise of Eve’s enemy. Eve is only able to complete her vengeance because of Wick, not on her own. For most of the film, Eve tears through dozens of enemies alone and makes it out on top, but now, when it matters most, she needs help to complete her mission.
It’s especially baffling because Ballerina tries to posit itself as a film about girl power, highlighting Eve’s femininity as an asset. In training, her trainer explicitly encourages her to “fight like a girl.” But Wick’s presence unravels this idea completely. It’s hard to imagine “fight like a girl but have a man save your a-- every step of the way” was the kind of female empowerment Ballerina was going for.
