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From the world of John Wick comes Ballerina, this, though, is the problem. You know all about Ballerina, but here’s the Last Movie Outpost review.
The movie stars Ana de Armas, Keanu Reeves, Norman Reedus, Ian McShane, Anjelica Huston, Gabriel Byrne, Catalina Sandino Moreno, and Lance Reddick. Len Wiseman is in the director’s chair, with Shay Hatten and Derek Kolstad penning the script.
The Story
All the events of Ballerina take place during the events of John Wick 3: Parabellum:
An assassin trained in the traditions of the Ruska Roma organization sets out to seek revenge after her father’s death.
The movie opens with a young Eve and her dad getting killed by The Chancellor (Byrne). Winston (McShane) then takes the young girl to The Director (Huston). There she enrols in the ballerina school, which is also an assassin training school as well. #Spoilers
She’s now all grown up and looks like De Armas, and she’s still looking for her father’s killers. Under the leadership of The Director, she takes on protective jobs, not killing people, but protect ‘innocent’ young ladies. These are usually the daughters of mob bosses, and Eve stops them from getting kidnapped.
She finds a clue to her father’s killer and goes on a murderous rampage to get revenge. That’s it, that’s the story, it’s not all that engaging and, overall, pretty thin.
The Cast
Firstly, I have to say how well all of the cast did in Ballerina. You can see that it was De Armas doing all of her own stunts, and everyone has done all their rehearsals. She plays Eve well, and the character is pretty interesting, but nothing really stands out.
McShane is McShane, I love the guy, but he’s been playing Winston for so long, there’s nothing really much to say about him. It’s the same with Huston and Reddick, both great actors, but they don’t really have much to do in Ballerina. Huston sits behind a desk and explains the plot. Reddick is the concierge at the Continental and welcomes guests.
The only stand out cast is Byrne and Reedus. Byrne is the bad guy and does it well. Reedus is also in the movie…for about 10 minutes.
In fact, now I think about it, Ballerina doesn’t really have anyone in it for long. Winston just drops Eve off at the ballet school. Reedus isn’t in it for long, nor is Bryne, to be honest. As I said, Huston explains the plot a couple of times, and Redick takes in coins at the Continental.
The Action
Since Ballerina is from the world of John Wick, there is a lot of action. In fact, I would say there is too much action. Now, this might be a silly thing to say about a movie based on John Wick, but hear me out.
I’ve seen all of the John Wick movies; in fact, I have seen them all more than once. The action is awesome, but never rarely tiresome. In the first movie, you are on Wick’s adventure, and everyone who dies deserves it, because of his dog.
The original John Wick movie was one long action sequence, but you are with it all the way. In Ballerina, it starts to drag on…a lot. I think it’s because they spend a good chunk of the movie on needless action instead of plot exposition.
Eve goes on her first mission, protecting a mob boss’s daughter at a nightclub. This is there to show 1. Eve can take a punch or seven and 2. we also see her caring side. We don’t want a woman who’s just a mindless killer; she has to have feelings. #2025
We Get the Point
With the action in Ballerina, the action just seems to go on and on, to a point where I was getting bored. Each of the fight scenes are just Eve kicking ass and taking on hench man after hench man. Yes, I know that’s what John Wick is, but here, it’s different.
Not spoiling too much, but the end of the movie, Eve tracks down The Chancellor, who lives in a town in the Swiss mountains. The town is populated by trained killers, assassins, and more henchmen than all the Bond movies combined.
In fact, there are families that live there, and mum and dad are killers, as are the kids. I’m pretty sure they even trained their pets to be assassins as well. This would be genius, no one expects that the hamster did it!
Eve ends up cutting her way through all of the town, the killer dads, the assassin moms, the dangerous kids and even the nibbling hamsters. OK, so not the hamsters, but the entire thing starts to get ridiculous.
In the original John Wick, you never felt that Wick was really outnumbered. When the first guys come to ‘get him’, there are about 4, maybe 5 of them, so he can handle that. It seems Eve, as the Ballerina, can take out the entire population of New York without breaking a sweat.
Oh no, it’s John Wick
As we know from the trailers, John Wick is sent to kill Eve, which happens towards the end of the movie. Now, I’m going to run a little competition here; the winner gets a free weekend at the recently opened Star Wars hotel.
The question for this amazing prize is: What do you think John does when he meets up with Eve?
If you have an IQ over room temperature, you will guess correctly! Putting Reeves in the movie was just a stupid idea, to be honest. We know what he’s going to do, we know he’s no real threat, it plays out exactly as you would expect.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Reeves and I’m always happy to see him in a movie, but in Ballerina, he’s there just to make a guest cameo. It would have surprised me if they put over cheering and applause when he was on the screen.
Overall
Ballerina isn’t a terrible movie, it’s just 1. not a good movie and 2. coasting off the back of John Wick. If this weren’t set in the same universe as Wick, it would have been better.
The movie is far too long; instead of overly long action sequences, they should have focused more on the plot. Yes, there are some subplots about why The Chancellor killed Eve’s father, but they aren’t all that exciting.
Ballerina is a ‘beer with mates’ movie. You don’t have to focus on the story, just take a drink every time Eve takes on a guy twice her size. This type of girl bossing is addressed in the movie. During Eve’s training, she’s told that she has to ‘fight dirty’ to win. You mean a good kick in the ballbag is the best way to take a man down? #Duh!
The movie will pass a couple of hours, the action is good, but it’s too long and just starts to drag after a while. I hope there isn’t a second one.
Ballerina is on VoD at the moment, but wait till it’s on your favourite streaming service, it’s not worth paying for.
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