Ballerina

There’s no need to yearn for a female 007 or a woman Wick anymore – just hope for another film that’s all about Eve.

A cluttered mess with a boring storyline but the action is often amazing, and there’s a genuine sense of humor to all its weird duels to the death. That’s something that’s been absent from the self-serious John Wick movies for far too long — an acknowledgement of their own wackiness.

A bigger, more confident sequel might be just what this franchise needs to enjoy a peaceful transition of power — and to make good on the full potential of a Hollywood action movie that meaningfully tries to iterate on John Wick instead of just copying his moves.

The pleasures of Ballerina are both blunt and fleeting; you’re not going to remember the plot—or any of the performances, perhaps save one—five minutes after the end credits role. But the picture’s cartoonish brutality is cathartic.

It does, in its DNA, certainly feel like a part of the Wickiverse, even if Reeves’s inevitable cameo feels forced. And while it doesn’t add much depth to the world, it at least gives credence to the amusing suggestion that these films do, in fact, take place in an alternate dimension where every person on the planet is a professional assassin.

The early scenes in this wacky place high in the mountains are the best part of “Ballerina” — they actually contain deft surprises and even a glimmer of humor, which is hardly something we expect in a John Wick film.

Ana de Armas stars as a new, lethally dull trainee assassin, Keanu Reeves makes an emergency cameo, and the film is an absolute stinker.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Ballerina hits theaters as yet another move by Lionsgate to keep the John Wick franchise alive and profitable. Since the resounding success of the third film and, especially, the fourth installment, which promised to be the end of Keanu Reeves' character's journey, the studio has begun to treat this universe as a gold mine to be exploited. Series, animations, spin-offs, and even a fifth film began to appear on the horizon. Within this context, Ballerina was born not only as a film but as a test of confidence: would it be possible to expand this world without directly relying on the figure of John Wick?The answer that the film itself provides is confusing. Ballerina tries to be an independent work, but at the same time, it seems to beg for John Wick's presence to legitimize itself. The feeling is similar to buying a ticket to a concert expecting something new and ending up watching a cover band playing another artist's greatest hits. The film exists, but it never feels completely its own.Ballerina is a film that disappoints not because it is bad, but because it falls short of what it could have been. It had the material, the cast, and a rich enough universe to tell its own story, with new paths and possibilities. Lionsgate, however, seems not to have fully trusted its protagonist and opted for the safest route: bringing the film as close as possible to the main **** result is a film that is narratively weak, repetitive in its structure, and dependent on the figure of John Wick to justify its existence. It is entertaining at specific moments, especially in the action scenes, but it never stands on its own as something truly new or relevant within the universe it attempts to expand. Ballerina proves, above all, that the franchise still works best when Keanu Reeves is at the center and raises the question of whether it is really worth continuing to invest in spin-offs that do not have the courage to stray from the **** can only hope that, if Lionsgate insists on this path, future projects will be more daring and have more identity. Because copying the style and formula of John Wick without John Wick himself is not an expansion of the universe, it is dependence.

Oh mais c’est (encore) un John Wick… John Wick 5, déjà ? non ?!… avec sa fille ou sa nièce ? une fille adoptée peut-être ? ah non, c’est une autre.. tueuse, une assassine revêche et brutale, élevée dans l’ultra violence, une « Nikita » survoltée… et d’ailleurs, n’oublions pas que c’est nous, les Franchouillards, qui avons inventé la nana assassine qui n’a l’air de rien… mais tue sur commande et sans sommation. En tout cas, donc, c’est son film à elle, même si Baba Yaga fait deux ou trois apparitions, comme un parrain sur sa protégée en quelque sorte… L’action reste fidèle aux « John Wick avec même quelques ralentis en prime (pour une nouvelle arme… vers la fin). Une action toujours aussi bien fichue et chorégraphiée : montage et cadrage soignés, c’est pas n’importe quoi, non, non : c’est du beau boulot de film d’action qui permet d’apprécier l’action… à sa juste mesure démesurée ! Comme dans tous les « John Wick » en somme… Et du coup, bah la cocotte assassine fait le boulot ici mais… sans plus. Attention, elle castagne et flingue à tout va mais… elle reste fade et transparente. On veut le vrai, l’unique John Wick et ses tours de magie, pas un succédané.. ou alors une actrice qui en impose, comme Charlize Theron dans Atomic Blonde (encore une autre assassine mais de haut vol !). L’autre souci concerne le scénar écrit avec le cul… ou bien par le chat qui a pété, peut-être ? ou quelque chose d’approchant… avec des révélations dans le chapeau… ils auraient dû faire plus simple, genre la vengeance de base et basta… mais bon. Enfin, ça manque un peu d’ironie ici même si à vrai dire, seuls les deux premiers films John Wick en avaient en quantité suffisante… car après, ça s’est tari. Mais je ne veux pas paraître blasé ou alors pas trop… ce « Ballerina » est un film tout à fait divertissant… même si je préfère de loin l’autre « Ballerina », le film coréen sans les moyens du film américain (ni le brio de la réalisation évidemment)… mais qu’il était drôle celui-là ! surtout son héroïne tueuse très pince-sans-rire !…

Yay grenades mean nothing until they do but then they don’t. Yaaaaayyyy. Rehash of JW 1 only set in latter fantasy realm of 3 and 4. Just boring and forgettable.

There's no original story. It's just one cliché after another. The acting is terrible. Ana de Armas is not an action actor. Every movement from her is forced and exaggerated and fraudulent. Which begs the question, why was she cast? After more than an hour of this I was done.