Ballerina Review

 

To avenge the murder of her father, a young girl becomes a ballerina assassin and kicks a whole lot of ass… And that’s pretty much the whole movie.

Ana de Armas is quite enjoyable and impressive as the lead; she does a lot of physical acrobatics and fight moves, and while not having a whole lot of dialogue, she is still able to emote a good amount of emotions with the micro-expressions she has to convey.

Gabriel Bryne is a good villain; there isn’t much to him besides being a creepy German guy, but as far as creepy Germans go, he knows how to be charismatically squirmy.

Angelica Houston plays the ballerina’s Russian boss, and while her accent does feel a little “moose and squirrel” at times, I thought she and the ballerina had an interesting chemistry and worked off each other well.

Ian McShane, Norman Reedus, and Lance Reddick are all solid, and it’s always nice to see them. Although, quit nitpicking… Norman Reedus’s accent shouldn’t make sense because of his character; if you see the movie, you know what I mean, but it’s nothing that takes away from the story.

John Wick does pop up in this, and for the most part, I think he was well utilized; he gets some good moments but doesn’t steal the show.

The main selling point of the John Wick films is the action, and Ballerina is no exception. For a slightly two-hour film, I would say there’s at least a good hour and a half of pure action, and they do manage to mix it up so it doesn’t get repetitive. There are a few comedic elements to some of the action, which I rather enjoyed, kind of like an ode to the Three Stooges and slapstick. Plus, without spoiling anything… There’s something really dope that happens with flamethrowers; that was probably my favorite part.

I will say the main character has a little bit too much plot armor, like I know these John Wick movies play fast & loose with physics, but even by their standards, there are some hits she gets where it’s like, “OK, you should be taking more damage than you are.”

Also, there is a character that, without spoiling anything, was supposed to have a bigger emotional impact and unfortunately felt kind of underutilized. I think more should’ve been done with them.

Plus, in the climax, they do the old trope I never really like of “even though there’s like 30 of us, we’ll attack the hero basically one at a time; I’m sure they won’t be able to kill us that way… Whoops, now we’re dead…” When will these henchmen learn?

The cinematography is gorgeous, with so much bright white, blue, and pinkish-purple lighting. There’s one nightclub in this that literally looked like Gotham repurposed Mr. Freeze’s lair from Batman and Robin and turned it into a nightclub… That was funny to me.

The script is fine, a tad bit long, and there are a couple of overly convenient plot contrivances, and they try really hard to push the message of “Fate vs. Choice,” both to mixed results, but the performances, action, cinematography, and Len Wiseman’s direction really bump this up to the next level.

Overall, there was a lot of thought and creativity that went into this film, and even if you have a mild interest in action, I think you’ll get a real… kick out of this film lol. I give it four stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. It’s a good time at the movies.