Tripwire Reviews From The World Of John Wick: Ballerina

Deadly Dull

Tripwire’s editor-in-chief Joel Meadows takes a look at From The World Of John Wick: Ballerina in cinemas now…

From The World Of John Wick: Ballerina
Stars: Ana de Armas, Keanu Reeves, Ian McShane, Anjelica Huston, Gabriel Byrne, Catalina Sandino Moreno
Director: Len Wiseman

Set between John Wick 3 and John Wick 4, Ballerina tells the story of Eve (de Armas), an assassin who has been trained in the traditions of the Ruska Roma criminal organisation seeking revenge after the murder of her father.

The John Wick films have made more with each instalment with John Wick 4 taking $443.7m but there is a creative problem with the film company continuing to mine Wick’s milieu. When the very first John Wick came out, they introduced a world that was intriguing and thought-provoking with Reeves as Wick at its centre. But the more you reveal, the less intriguing that world becomes. The maxim less is more is definitely one that is valid here. So we have had four films and a TV spin-off The Continental so far.  The question here is whether we need yet another film or project set in the world of John Wick? The answer is sadly very clear here.

Underworld director Len Wiseman has a certain sort of skill bringing action films to the screen and the script doesn’t waste much time introducing the MacGuffin at the heart of the film, Eve’s obsession with getting revenge on The Chancellor (Byrne), the man who killed her father. Anjelica Huston has a fairly pointless cameo here as the head of Eve’s gangster order and she looks fairly bored too so hopefully she has been handsomely paid.

We are then subjected to a series of increasingly robotic, sub video game action scenes where Eve sets out to get her vengeance on the shadowy organisation who robbed her of her father. The action scenes are competently handled but without any real onscreen spark or invention. At least in the John Wick films, there is some sort of imagination put into play  when we see John dispatch his adversaries. Eve is a fairly uninteresting character with surely one of the hoariest and most overly familiar plot tropes in action films. McShane looks like he’s counting the money in his eyes here in a pointless cameo while Reeves is on hand as a way of promoting the film. But even Reeves is fairly flat and unengaging here too in his short, redundant cameo. Reedus has a very brief cameo here too as fellow assassin but his screen time is so brief, you’ve pretty much forgotten his appearance anyway. Byrne as Eve’s adversary just looks tired rather than menacing here. De Armas has shown that she has a little range in the past in things like Knives Out and Blonde but she has nothing to work with here.

It’s not unusual for Hollywood to milk successful franchises to death but Ballerina is an empty and totally forgettable two hours of screen time. John Wick 4 wasn’t much better. Wick was assisted by the fact that Reeves has real onscreen presence and there was some sense of emotional resonance to at least the first Wick film. You are hard pressed to remember this film almost the instant that you leave the cinema.

From The World Of John Wick: Ballerina is a truly unmemorable film but it’s alright: there’ll be another one along soon.

JOEL MEADOWS

Watch the trailer here

Here’s A Final Trailer From John Wick Spin-off Ballerina