SYNOPSIS: Taking place between the events of “John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum” and “John Wick: Chapter 4,” “Ballerina,” sees Ana de Armas as a newly minted Ruska Roma assassin looking to exact revenge for her father’s death. “Your childhood was taken from you,” says her mentor (Anjelica Huston), “It’s that pain that drives you.”
CAST: Ana de Armas, Gabriel Byrne, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Norman Reedus, Anjelica Huston, Lance Reddick, Ian McShane, Keanu Reeves. Directed by Len Wiseman.
REVIEW: A sequel ready spin-off of the “John Wick” movies, it’s a shame that “Ballerina’s” storytelling isn’t quite as agile as its main character.
The origin story of Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas), “Ballerina” begins with childhood trauma. After witnessing the murder of her father at the hands of a killer cult, she follows in the footsteps of John Wick to become a highly trained Ruska Roma assassin.
With vengeance on her mind, and “Lux in tenebris,” a Latin phrase that translates to “light in darkness” tattooed on her back, she vows to hunt down the man responsible for the father-sized void in her life.
The story of rules and consequences—”When you deal in blood there must be rules or nothing matters,” says Ruska Roma Director (Angelica Huston)—borrows the framework of “John Wick” but forgets to bring the fun.
The first Wick film was a masterclass in restrained filmmaking. Well, perhaps that’s not exactly the word, the body count is too high to be considered restrained, but it was economical in its approach. The stripped-down storytelling eliminated any excess. From its set-up to blood-soaked finale, it was uncompromisingly lean and mean.
“Ballerina’s” approach feels overstuffed and yet slack by comparison. Director Len Wiseman allows the story to get tangled up as he interweaves the tale of Eva’s vengeance with Wick’s Wild World of Assassins.
Our introduction to Eva should come with high stakes. If John Wick is willing to reign holy hell down on the men responsible for the death of his dog, imagine what Eva could do to avenge her father. There will be blood, but because we only see the father at the beginning of the film, the stakes don’t seem all that elevated. Instead, “Ballerina” is a series of Wickian set pieces supervised by Chad Stahelski that provide the appropriate amount of gun-fu and face stomping, etc that you would expect, but apart from two standout sequences the action has a sameness that made me agree with Gabriel Byrne’s character when he said near thew end of the movie, “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”
Two of the action scenes, however, deliver the kind of inventiveness you expect from a Wick movie. A high kicking set piece in a restaurant features a plate smashing scene that is funny, a bit ridiculous and creative and a literal fire fight adds visual pizazz but much of the action looks like generic video game violence.
“Ballerina” delivers on the franchise’s promise of a high body count but suffers from low stakes and a serious case of “off-shoot-itis.” Stuck somewhere between trying to replicate the vibe of the Wick films and forging a new path within that universe, it’s mired in the mushy middle.
“Why don’t you just die?” screams one of the hundreds of people looking to kill the titular character in “John Wick: Chapter 4,” the wild new Keanu Reeves assassin movie now playing in theatres.
Why doesn’t he just die? Because he’s John Wick, a mix of Anton Chigurgh, Wile E. Coyote and the Energizer Bunny, that’s why.
If you’re a fan of the movies, you already know Wick can take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’. You don’t need the backstory to enjoy the new film, but it might help. Here’s a quick John Wick Wiki to get you up to speed.
The John Wick Universe is a place where an association of twelve crime lords, called the High Table, govern the underworld’s most powerful criminal organizations. They control the Continental, a hotel chain with exclusive branches sprinkled across the globe that serve as homebases for assassins. It is a place run by a strict set of rules, like never do “business” on the premises, by managers like Wick’s friend Winston Scott (Ian McShane) who runs the New York outlet.
Legendary hitman Wick ran afoul of the High Table, and was declared excommunicado. He is persona non grata and they want him dead. Trouble is, he’s hard to kill.
Also, he really loves dogs as much he loves killing people. There. You’re caught up.
At the beginning of the new film, High Table elder and all-round psychopath, Marquis de Gramont (Bill Skarsgård), displeased with Winston’s continuing connection to Wick, decommissions the Continental New York. “He is the face of your failure,” he sneers.
With one of his last allies rendered powerless, Wick must get to the Marquis before the Marquis can get to him.
Cue an amount of mayhem rarely seen this side of Russian car wreck videos on YouTube.
At 2 hours and 49 minutes “John Wick: Chapter 4” is by far the longest film in the franchise. Heck, it’s even longer than “Pulp Fiction,” “A Clockwork Orange” and “Raging Bull,” but director Chad Stahelski maintains interest, staging at least one major action sequence, more like a well-choreographed ballet for the blood thirsty, each hour. People get gone in spectacular ways, Wick defies the laws of physics and medical science to get his revenge and some of the world’s most beautiful locations become the backdrop to Wick style mayhem.
A scene staged in the roundabout circling Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile is an eyepopper, one of the best big screen action scenes in recent years not directed by George Miller. A shoot out on the 200 steps of Paris’s Sacré-Cœur has an anarchic cartoon vibe that would make the Tasmanian Devil envious. Tom Cruise may be famous for his signature run, but after this, I think, Reeves will be remembered for falling down stairs. It’s a wild, extended ticking-clock sequence that uses slapstick humor to alleviate the tension as Wick violently makes his way to a date with destiny.
Adding to the action sweepstakes are Hong Kong martial arts superstar Donnie Yen as the blind assassin Caine, and legendary Japanese actor and martial artist Hiroyuki Sanada, last seen on screen with Reeves in 2013’s “47 Ronin,” who plays the manager of the Osaka Continental Hotel and an old friend of Wick. Yen is effortlessly cool, with an elegant and humorous fighting style that threatens to steal the show from Wick’s blunt force. Sanada has fighting skills and brings gravitas to the character, a man who values loyalty above all. The personality each bring to their scenes adds much to the effectiveness of the action.
Director Stahelski stages several all-timer action scenes with grace and inventiveness, always remembering to keep the frenetic battles clean and easy to follow.
Of course, the Wick movies are all about the central character, a man whose path to inner peace is littered with the bodies of the people he’s killed. Like a character straight out of a Sergio Leone film, he is a man of few words, and few motivations. In part, that is what makes the character and the movies so enjoyable. He may be the most lethal man on the planet, but, in each movie, his violent tendencies are in service of one objective. There is no muddled middle ground for Wick, no waffling, and that clarity of purpose keeps the movies from becoming cluttered, even at an epic 169-minute run time.
If “John Wick: Chapter 4” is the last film starring Keanu Reeves in the series—it is set-up for spin-offs within the Wickverse—then it goes out with a bang.
I introed the Canadian premier of “John Wick: Chapter 4” with stars Keanu Reeves and Shamier Anderson and director Chad Stahelski. Instead of the planned Q&A, they did a tribute to Lance Reddick, a co-star in all four Wick movies, who passed away earlier in the day.
Cast your mind back to 2014. John Wick, the retired super assassin played by Keanu Reeves, was attempting to move on after the death of his wife. Keeping him company was a puppy, sent by his wife just before she died in the hopes that the dog’s love will help ease his pain. But then came the bad men who broke into his house to steal his super nifty 1970 Mustang. Things go sideways and the thieves do the unspeakable.
They kill the dog.
Big mistake. The doggy’s daddy is a killing machine. How wicked is John Wick? “Is he the boogeyman?” asks one former associate. “He was the one we sent to kill the boogeyman.”
Thus, was set into motion the series of bloody, open-up-a-can-of-whoop-ass events that lead us to “John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum.”
Following “Chapter 2” which saw Wick ostracized from the exclusive world of killers-for-hire after breaking some very Old Testament style rules laid down by Winston (Ian McShane), operator of the mysterious assassin association the High Table. Now Wick has a $14 million price tag on his head and an army of international bounty-hunters on his tail.
You don’t go to “John Wick” movies for nuanced character development. You go for the kick butt-ery. “Chapter 3” delivers on the promise of action with scenes that show Wick dispatching a man using nothing but a book, stabbing somebody in the eye – that one is gruesome – and, of course shooting everyone in sight. There is so much and gunplay it’s as if they had to use up all of “Chapter 3’s” bullet budget or they wouldn’t get it again for the inevitable sequel.
These action scenes are carefully choreographed and the absence of music in the early fights emphasizes the brutality and the absurdity of the violence. But while we expect uber-violence from this franchise, we also expect consistently inventive battle scenes. There’s some of that—the action scenes involving horses and motorcycles are wild and woolly—but a long shoot-out in Casablanca is just that – a long shoot-out in Casablanca that feels plucked from a video game.
As the series moves further away from the original “dead puppy“ revenge plot of the original it is losing some of the simplicity that made the first two movies so enjoyable. The world of the High Table comes with rules of plenty but in the context of these action films less could be more. We don’t need complicated world building. This isn’t a Marvel movie, it’s a fists of fury action flick that threatens to get bogged down by details.
Having said that, “Chapter Three – Parabellum” (a Latin phrase meaning ‘prepare for war’) is still a hoot and features some of the coolest fight scenes in movies right now despite its excesses.
