Ballerina

"Can John Wick the franchise survive without John Wick the character?" That's the question Ballerina asks and attempts to answer. Remove the proper nouns and it is the question at the heart of every spinoff: can Angel survive without Buffy? Can the Minions survive without Gru? Ballerina attempts to answer this question by going back to the basics of the first John Wick movie: a simple revenge plot. It's creaky and tiresome, yes, but it has been the bedrock of ten thousand action movies, high budget and low, and it'll continue to be so. While there are ties to the Wick franchise -- the mysterious ballet training academy that doubles as an assassin school, The Continental Hotel, Wick himself -- Ballerina throws off the shackles of the main series' lore about The High Table and focuses on a group of people living in the mountains in Europe. They have customs (but not, as the movie says over and over, no rules, which seems like a distinction without a difference) and will kill to preserve them. There's a malevolent boss character (played by Gabriel Byrne) who speaks in a hushed growl. Ana de Armas racking up a body count like the national debt. And direction that prioritizes fluid camera movement, artsy shots, and the unique style and glamour of the Wick world. All the elements of the recipe are there. Like The Beekeeper and Nobody before it, Ballerina follows the recipe, even more than those movies, really, because it's set in the same universe. And therein lies the problem. John Wick, as a franchise, has never learned an important lesson: sequels should not just extend, they should expand. The Wick sequels always thought more was better, and the result was diminishing returns. Every subsequent movie in the series pummels the viewer into submission with a non-stop parade of balletic action, and it is all gorgeously choreographed and filmed. But none of the John Wick movies actually does anything different from the last. Following the formula becomes a detriment that imitators learned to avoid; Nobody actually develops a character arc for its protagonist, and The Beekeeper doesn't bother trying to be an art piece and goes OTT with the insanity. There is no arc. Ballerina does not learn this lesson. It does not acknowledge that this lesson exists. It doubles down on everything the Wick franchise has ever done, and the movie suffers for it. The "cult" introduced here is a Great Value High Table that lives in the Alps. Ana de Armas' Eve is a gender-swapped John Wick; she suffers damage until it's plot-convenient not to feel it, she has no arc or depth to speak of, and she goes rogue against the advise of learned elders. Business gets conducted on the grounds of The Continental in spite of the pledge not to. None of this builds on the world or grows it in any way. This is a copycat brand with the official seal of approval. This is a side mission in a video game. This is driving to Disneyland and stopping off at a tourist trap museum on the way. You're not going to be bored by Ballerina. It cooks with the same ingredients and from the same recipe as John Wick, so if you liked those, you should like this. Ana de Armas is nowhere near as cool as Keanu Reeves, but I will give credit to them acknowledging that de Armas and Reeves are not of the same stature, and thus constructed the action sequences with that in mind. And they never sexualize de Armas either. This really is, for all intents and purposes, Jane Wick. If you liked Wick, you'll probably be fine with this. But at the very least, you'll watch it, like it, and forget it. At worst, it'll make you ask a question, the question that the makers of Ballerina should've asked themselves: it's not important to know IF the franchise could perpetuate without its titular hero, but SHOULD it?