Expanding universe of assassins, one star bigger
This “John Wick” spin-off has not quite the muscle or star power to fill the triple-E fandom shoes that the Wick World has grown to offer. It’s a double letdown too, as Ana de Armas, excellent as K’s virtual lover in “Blade Runner 2049” (2017) and transformative, not to mention Oscar nominated, as Marilyn Monroe in “Blonde” (2022), seems more than capable of taking on a fierce female franchise character. Sadly, as rendered by director Len Wiseman and writer Shay Hatten (who penned the past two Wick chapters), in action and character it’s a template in search of a soul – which is something of a shock. Wiseman’s directed kick-ass heroines better before, namely then-wife Kate Beckinsale in the “Underworld” films.
To be clear, the World of Wick was never anything all that imaginative. Like the “Fast & Furious” films or Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible” stunt projects, it’s always been an excuse for a star to blaze across the scene. Keanu Reeves, the man who is John Wick, sold the franchise with his weary, zoned-out zen assassin persona and willingness to go all in on the fight work and stunts. The action in “Ballerina” takes place between “John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum” (2019) and “John Wick: Chapter 4” (2023). If you remember from “Parabellum” when Wick visits The Director (Angelica Houston) at the Tarkovsky Theater, a front for the Ruska Roma crime syndicate that Wick used to do hits for, there was a lithe, tiny dancer on stage (played then by real-life ballerina Unity Phalen). Turns out those tiptoe gazelles are the kikimora, elite assassins and not bad dancers. With de Armas now donning the pointe slippers as Eve Macarro and losing her “Parabellum” handle of Rooney, we get her backstory: father killed by another assassin org run by some grizzled honcho known as The Chancellor (the ever stately Gabriel Byrne, though he’s not as stately here as Ian McShane as Winston, overseer of the New York outpost of The Continental Hotel, where all the hip, high-paid hit-people hang out gun free); goes through grueling assassination training under The Director – the grimmest being in a room with an assassin in training and put on a clock to assemble a Glock or die.
While the “John Wick” films were all about vengeance over a puppy and a prized muscle car, after a quick trial assignment reminiscent of “Point of No Return” (1993, also co-starring Byrne), Eve goes off the Ruska Roma script and homes in on The Chancellor, who has a whole hillside of minions in the Austrian Alps. The film’s as violent as the Wicks, but not as tightly choreographed. (Those four films were shot by stunt performer turned filmmaker Chad Stahelski). Our man Wick (Reeves) is notably in the mix, and when he’s on screen the film perks up a bit more – but overall “Ballerina” leaves a game de Armas out in the cold. None of the stunt work or any one scene is particularly all that memorable; even two combatants going at it with flamethrowers in a city square doesn’t turn the heat up. Given the vast and ready Wick audience, this spinoff is all but assured of a sequel, while more expansion of the Wick Universe feels nearly as certain. My thoughts for a Wick-ed female sidebar would be Halle Berry’s Sofia Al-Azwar, the former assassin turned Continental Casablanca manager from “Parabellum” who, with her two well-trained German Shepherds, brought verve and bite to the beatdown.
For What it's Worth 
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