Ballerina
Set in the world of John Wick, Ana de Armas stars as our titular ballerina who becomes part of the Ruska Roma following the death of her father. After a rough opening 20-25 minutes setting up her origin story and early days training, things finally get going with Eve's first assignment in a night club before jumping ahead a few months as the seasoned killer gets her first lead and becomes distracted tracking down those responsible for her family's death. her journey will lead her into conflict with a cult of assassins, the Ruska Roma, and eventually even John Wick (Keanu Reeves).
There's trappings aplenty here from the John Wick films including trips to the Continental, piles of dead bodies, and Reeves, Ian McShane, Anjelica Huston, and Lance Reddick all reprising their roles from earlier films. The plot, other than the just having to accept the cult for what it is, is straightforward enough and doesn't get lost in the world building of the later Wick films. Although Reeves scenes feel more than a bit shoehorned in, the plot wouldn't be notably affected removing them, they do help symbolically with him giving his blessing to the proceedings.
As with the rest of the John Wick films, From the World of John Wick: Ballerina isn't high art, but once it gets going it proves to be an awful lot of fun and Ana de Armas proves more than capable of carrying the action film. And, as expected, we get a high body count with murder by ice skate, grenades, flamethrower, knives, explosions, and lots and lots of bullets. Given her rather horrific filmography, this is easily one of her best films and ending with the tease of a sequel (which shouldn't need anywhere near this amount of setup) we have the possibility of an even better film to follow.
Watch the trailer- Title: From the World of John Wick: Ballerina
- IMDb: link
