FROM THE WORLD OF JOHN WICK: BALLERINA

By Victoria Alexander

Eve faces brutal, vicious killers who beat her to a pulp with a bruise or a muscle ache. She is thrown off a mountain, drowned, slammed through tables and punched in the face. She didn’t limp once or get her clothes dirty! She kills a hundred machine-welding assassins and engulfs 30 of them in a blast of fire. Tiny Eve is 5’6” and probably 105 lbs. and carries weapons weighing 25 lbs. with ease.

This is the only glaring flaw in BALLERINA. It is a terrific addition to the John Wick Universe. The coins, the history, the Continental, the High Table rules are all too unique to end with the John Wick movies. (Filmmakers: okay Wick is dead. So date the next film in 2010 before his death.)

I miss The Adjudicator.

Through this epic pursuit, Eve never gets thirsty, hungry or sleeps.

Charlize Theron’s brilliant turn in ATOMIC BLONDE is the gold standard for a spy/killer heroine. At 5’ 10” you believe Theron has the height (and weight) to fight off the many skilled killers who come after her. After an extremely tough fight, we see her character’s body badly bruised injuries in a bath.

Who can forget her killing a man with her stiletto heel?

If there will not be an ATOMIC BLONDE 2, how about teaming up Theron and Reeves? Their past two movies together need a kickass finale. Rather this pairing then Theron’s regrettable role as Cipher in THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS and F9: THE FAST SAGA. Who approved the Moe Howard hairdo?

The Wick Universe favorite characters are back: first is The Director, (Angelica Huston), the head of the Ruska Roma crime family. She is at her center of operation, a ballet/martial acts assassin factory.

Not only are the ballet classes punishing, but the girls are trained as vicious killers paired against men. Their trainer is Nogi (Sharon Duncan-Brewster). Kidnapped at 8 years old and sent to The Director’s ballet school, Eve Macarro (Ana De Armas) spies John Wick (Keanu Reeves), aka the mythic, feared Baba Yaga, being ruthlessly expelled from the Ruska Roma. The Baba Yaga is like my childhood sub-basement’s Boogey Man. Eve asks Wick to help her leave the brutal community she has been forced into after her father, Javier (David Castaneda) was murdered while she watched.

After Eve’s final test, she is given a mission. This is her family’s legacy and she has been born into a family of assassins. Eve will work for the Ruska Roma but she really wants to find and kill the men who killed her father.

Eve is warned not to seek out the men who killed both her parents: the rival family to the Ruska Roma is led by The Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne).

Eve ignores The Director’s demand not to go after the rival family. There is a truce in place.

Eve laughs at the warning and goes to the New York Continental Hotel. She approaches the front desk and gives her coin to the concierge, Charon (Lance Reddick), for a meeting with the owner Winston (Ian McShane). The Continental is filled with assassins waiting for Eve. Remember the rule about no killing at the Continental hotels? Well, a multi-million-dollars worth of damage is done.

Sean “Tootsie Roll” Combs tried to rent a suite at the New York Continental, but Charon refused to accept cash and turned away his staff wheeling in a pallet of baby oil.

Eve is finally given a tip that the killers of her father live in an Austrian Alpine snowy village. The filmmakers have given BALLERINA this terrific staging of a fairy tale village only for killers and their families of future assassins. It’s a gorgeous setting for the total destruction of the perfect Alpine village.

Every place Eve goes, buildings are destroyed. She’s the Demolition Curse.

When The Director is told Eve is on an unauthorized solo mission, she has only one person who can stop the carnage: John Wick.

The director, Len Wiseman, is a master of the genre. Understanding Armas’s physique, he cleverly has Eve using household items as weapons. The screenplay by Shay Hatten gives John Wick his consummate stance. And, going against the current “Woke Me” Article of Hollywood’s Constitution of Movie Principles, Eve does not save Wick’s life.

Who cares about these character’s childhoods and their progression into killers?

Although, Eve’s backstory does play very nicely into the outcome. Of course, we all know that Eve will protect a child and use a cast-iron frying pan to kill a machine gun wielding assassin. Eve is up against the entire village of assassins. In the snow-covered village, she never gets cold or needs a heavy coat.

I looked on IMDb.com but could not find the name of the man who ran the stunts department. My only criticism of de Armas is I wish the filmmakers would have asked her to gain at least 10 pounds to add some muscle to her fighting skills and add one nasty black and blue mark.

BALLERINA, honoring the tradition of John Wick, is an admirable salve for Wickian fanatics, as we wait for JOHN WICK 5: THE RESURRECTION.

"The ALL is Mind; The Universe is Mental."

Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer Critic.

For a complete list of Victoria Alexander's movie reviews on Rotten Tomatoes go to:

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/critics/victoria-alexander/movies

Contributing to:FilmsInReview: http://www.filmsinreview.com

Member of Las Vegas Film Critics Society

Personal email:  victoria.alexander.lv@gmail.com