Ballerina – Review

Cert – 15, Run-time – 2 hours 5 minutes, Director – Len Wiseman

After being attacked by a member of the cult who killed her father (David Castañeda), Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas) sets out to finally find and kill the leader (Gabriel Byrne), however multiple forces may be on her tail.

In its later stages Ballerina manages to one up one of the coolest things I’ll see in a cinema this year with something even more cool and ridiculous. As an underground flamethrower fight turns into a flamethrower vs firehose duel in the middle of a street I felt the urge to applaud alongside laughter at what was unfolding on screen. Yes, there’s a ridiculousness to it, but the moment is worn with such style that the intensity and coolness outweighs that, whilst also working with it, to make for a more entertaining moment.

While the action of this spin-off to the John Wick franchise – largely set between the third and fourth instalment – might not always have the same rapid nature to action sequences it does later show when Keanu Reeves briefly appears that only Wick can truly fight like that. Yet, there’s still plenty of great improvised and at-hand weapons to fuel the action when it arises; and it arises often.

After a somewhat overlong build-up, set in the underworld which brings so much personality to the Wick franchise when we glimpse more of it, but as a main basis doesn’t quite have the same effect, once the fights begin there’s almost non-stop action from then on. And there’s plenty to be thrilled by as it pushes things forward in the titular assassin’s (Ana de Armas’ Eve Macarro) search for the leader of the cult (Gabriel Byrne) who killed her father (David Castañeda) when she was a child. There’s a good deal of threat and narrative progression in each sequences once things kick in, with the odd bit of dialogue in-between, and sometimes during, to help move things along and bring in a sense of tension.

There have been frequent reports of reshoots, rewrites and setbacks for this spin-off, but in the final edit there’s a good sense of flow from one sequence to the next and there’s a generally fluid state to the run-time. Where the film is at its roughest is as it’s setting everything up and bringing in characters from The Continental and other John Wick locations for brief roles before de Armas is allowed to venture out on her own journey proper, and make for an engaging lead. Of course, it’s nice to see these characters, especially Lance Reddick in his final role as the consistently scene-stealing hotel receptionist Charon,

As things develop the action grows and steps away from more of a standard action into something more adjacent to what we’re familiar with from the Wick franchise – with Len Wiseman stepping into the director’s role, although it’s reported that producer and series-director Chad Stahelski oversaw the majority of reshoots. Pacey and exciting there’s still a difference in what we see without, eventually, feeling too plain and somewhat slow. It’s an effect that comes in when the underworld becomes a contributing element to the action, as different assassin tribes communicate with each other and consequences are discussed and faced, instead of the sole backdrop and upfront factor of the events.

But, when you eventually get a fight involving a flamethrower and a firehose, part of a slight sense of humour which crops up once or twice throughout the film including a perhaps unintended dad joke delivered by Reeves early on and a sequence involving two characters smashing plates over each others heads as they scramble for a gun, the wait is worth it. Especially when the wait develops a style which brings out the high entertainment factor and helps to speed things up with a fair deal of effective punches, shots, kicks, stabs, slashes and smashes along the way.

It might take some time to build things up, but as the assassin underworld moves more into intriguing background details Ballerina becomes less plain and more thrilling with each slickly-linked, entertaining action sequence.