Ballerina

GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★★

Rated: MA15+

Directed by: Len Wiseman

Written by: Shay Hatten

Based on Characters by: Derek Kolstad

Produced by: Basil Iwanyk, Erica Lee, Chad Stahelski

Starring: Ana de Armas, Anjelica Huston, Gabriel Byrne, Lance Reddick, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Norman Reedus with Ian McShane and Keanu Reeves.

‘Fight like a girl.’

As the tag goes, ‘From the world of John Wick’, Ballerina is a story of a girl, Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas), like John Wick (Keanu Reeves), seeking revenge.

First introduced as a young girl living with her father, Eve is locked away in a compound; her father twirls her around, teaching her to dance.

He has to go away.

He gives her a ballerina in a glass case that twirls around to Tchaikovsky.

Her father wants to save her, to give her, ‘a free and open life.’

Then the bad guys take him away from her.  The ones with the scar like a cross across their wrist.

And it’s the pain of losing her father that drives Eve, the pain.

It’s Winston Scott (Ian McShane) who introduces Eve to her new family, the Ruska Roma.

The story of Ballerina is a world within the John Wick world as the Director of the Ruska Roma (Anjelica Huston) takes Eve under her wing.

The story fast forwards 12 years to Eve being trained to be an assassin.

And it’s 12 years later she asks John Wick how does she get out.  Not out of the Ruska Roma; but to stop being a ballerina.  To become an assassin, like him.

So the film has the same tone as the John Wick films but with more weight on the storyline.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s still plenty of action.

At one point, I was musing about the difference of showing the carnage left after the violence, when there’s a surprise of creative car action I didn’t see coming, until I did.  Then more bullets.

Inventive, Ballerina doesn’t disappoint.

The fifth instalment of the John Wick world, new director, Len Wiseman (Underworld series 2003-2016) keeps the same stylised violence but not as much, in my mind, the right amount of action to balance with character, setting, story and action that continues to look gorgeous on the big screen.

Think, blood on the camera lens, camera angles that fall on their side like a body finally giving out, juxtaposed with the high-class Continental Hotel with rain streaming down the slanting, wide angle windows and the rich glamour of the candle, velvet strewn rooms of the Tarkovsky Theatre.

And there’s an earnest aspect that Ana de Armas brings to the character Eve.

Ballerina is the same but different to the John Wick films, and a worthy side story that’s not so much about girl power but more a story of vengeance.