If you examine the structure of the movie Ballerina, a spin-off of the John Wick franchise, it has a very generic feel. It has that typical origin story pattern of narrating the character’s journey where we are pretty much given an idea in the beginning itself of what the story is going to be. However, director Len Wiseman and writer Shay Hatten are actually using this usualness to present the action blocks in an escalating manner. And that really engages the audience with the developments as the story progresses. With the action blocks having the rawness and slickness of the John Wick franchise, Ballerina manages to be a worthy spin-off.
So the story here is about Eve Macarro, a Ruska Roma graduate who lost her family in her childhood as part of some cult gang tussle. Years after her graduation, when she goes on a mission, she happens to get some intel about who might have killed her family. What we see in Ballerina is Eve’s solo efforts to find out about the people who ruined her childhood.
Ballerina is getting a lot of advantages from being a spin-off. Because if you look at John Wick, the character exposition they do through dialogues and build-ups is something so euphoric, and without even seeing the extent of the brutality John Wick can unleash, you will just buy the truth that he is the boogeyman. Ballerina is more conventional, and it is like watching the rise of a regular girl with vengeance in her head, achieving all this with rigorous training. Unlike Wick, the audience has a clear idea about who she is. In John Wick, the audience was sort of understanding about Wick through various villains. Here, we are getting to know more and more about the bad guys through Eve.
It is pretty much clear that people will be turning up for this movie for the action blocks, and designing something that will make it feel like a part of the John Wick world was key. When you look at the very first action sequence in the movie or even the very first mission of Eve in the film, it definitely has that roughness, but something is missing. But like I said, the movie is holding back the best for later, and as the missions become tougher and tougher, we are getting to see Eve being part of some of these outrageous action blocks. The way a seemingly normal final shot of a big action block, where the leading character just goes away in a car suddenly turns into a brutal fight, or the use of grenades in one particular action sequence where just some of those things we would only see in a John Wick movie.
The element of someone’s personal vengeance becoming a reason for a major face-off is getting repeated here as well, and we have all the quintessential Wick flick moments like the Continental check-ins, weapon purchases, bounties, etc. The cinematography here uses a visual language similar to the John Wick films, and we can see these low-lit frames with neon lights in many areas. In the very first mission of Eve, the visuals have this Pink tone, starting from her dress to the light sources. However, as we see her progression, the percentage of pink drops, and it becomes more and more red and black – a bit stereotypical, but still works. The sound design in that restaurant-action sequence was really exquisite.
Ana de Armas has a face that can express the vulnerability of the character pretty effectively on screen. Since the movie has a very linear narration, we get to see the transition of the character from being full of rage to being a person with a more mature demeanor. Ana portrays that transition believably. Anjelica Huston reprises her role from Parabellum, and it seems like she could well be playing the Winston equivalent of Eve. Gabriel Byrne plays the bad guy here. Ian McShane and Lance Reddick are here reprising their characters in this universe along with our main man, John Wick, performed in that signature style by Keanu Reeves. I wouldn’t say the scenes of John Wick are integral to the story. It is a bit of a gimmick, but who wouldn’t want to see Keanu Reeves as John Wick one more time?
One of the things that needs to be mentioned here is the way they have shown brutal violence without necessarily making it a gore fest. Be it the way the scenes are lit or the way the frames are set, avoiding the blood splash, Ballerina utilizes elements like the pacing of cuts, framing, and sound design to provide an experience that feels like bloodshed without necessarily showing damaged body parts. As the world-building for this movie has already been taken care of by Chad Stahalski films, we don’t need much time to understand the syntax of how the world works in Ballerina. By maintaining the visual aesthetics of the other films in the franchise and also by creating action set-pieces that really hook you in, Ballerina becomes this enjoyable spin-off that can use the world of John Wick effectively in the future.
