Ballerina is the newest entry in the John Wick universe, including a short appearance of the character John Wick (played by Keanu Reeves) himself. This movie is the natural evolution of the other movies, making its own identity while experimenting with the kind of action that pleases the watcher. Ballerina gives us an amazing showing of an excellent but pretty amateurish assassin at the beginning of her career, going on a tiring and lengthy journey to find her father’s killer. Because of her small and skinny, she is taught to use everything to her advantage, dirty trick or not. This simple fact informs the exhilarating action throughout the entire movie and enhances it.
The physicality here is refreshing to see, as it shows the desperation of Ana de Armas’ character, Eve Macarro, within every action scene—having to arguably improvise more than John Wick. There are scenes where her primary weapon isn’t just a gun; instead using melee weapons to take on a crowd of enemies and enact violence. In both flawless and clumsy execution, Eve Macarro is inventive in how she deals with enemies. She uses a range of blunt and sharp items to kill an enemy or interrupt them, finish them off, or buy more time. Her kills feel more like murder, requiring great effort by default.
Ana de Armas Gives a Convincing Performance
Sure, it’s not as clean and effective as John Wick’s style of combat, but it is nonetheless impressive. It becomes easier to place myself in her shoes, emulating her visual surprise or anger when she doles out her vengeance. There is something unique about the body language, as the bodies sort of dance and react to each other, satisfyingly and realistically. Eve’s struggle is something you can feel in the long and arduous gunfights and brawls.
One disappointment I will share is that while I expected Ana de Armas to elegantly dance like a ballerina while fighting (like the title would imply), she never actually ends up doing that. It works for the better, though, since it is Eve’s inelegant fighting style that catches my attention. Her gradual transformation to a more refined killer is a much better payoff than being a perfect warrior. This is no John Wick, after all.
The Stage at Play
Another visually pleasing aspect of the movie is its setting. What pops up in my memory most when I think about the movie is the beautiful lights and darks of the secret location in the film: a solitary town covered in snow and made up of several stone paths and old-fashioned buildings. The fights are finally placed where civilian life thrives, in stores, houses or public stairs—the new places of violence. I am convinced that we don’t usually get action scenes in these settings, so it turns out to be more fun and imaginative than I expected.
A New Kind of Action
One of my favorite elements of the movie is that of surprise, in which Eve comes across unexpected situations. She visually communicates this to the viewer with her facial shock or irritation. It seems like the movie was made in part to experiment with the type of action the John Wick universe is known for, specifically when it comes to weapon variety and improvisation. It’s almost obvious that violence in a social setting would happen this way: rough, varied, and even funny. It really is refreshing.
I think this is probably where this sort of action movie intends to go, as it reminds me of the 2021 movie Nobody, written by John Wick creator Derek Kolstad. Both Nobody and Ballerina show a lot of grit, improvised action, and this modern style of action that is hard to get tired of. It excites me that Ballerina continues with this experimentation, as I expect this direction to take action movies to new places, just like the original John Wick did. I strongly recommend Ballerina for action movie watchers, because it’s going to give you either what you didn’t know you wanted from action movies, or what you thought was missing from them.
