Ballerina on Canal Plus: the John Wick spin-off doesn’t hit hard enough (critic)

Carried by a less charismatic Ana de Armas than expected, this derivative of the John Wick universe is one more “john-wickerie” in a world saturated by John Wick clones.

The John Wick saga experienced its first setback with the spin-off Ballerina, which was a failure in theaters last summer with only $137 million in worldwide box office revenue (for a budget of $90 million), and less than 400,000 spectators in France. It is broadcast this Saturday evening on Canal Plus, and already available for streaming on MyCanal. Here is the review published by Première when it was released:

It’s already a good ten years old, but “john-wick-sploitation” (the little name given to the wave of substitutes for John Wick which swarm on the screens) shows no sign of running out of steam. The copies continue to flow in and also spawn small ones (Mr Wolff 2 on Prime Video this week, Nobody 2 in cinemas in August…) and, even though the die-hard and flamboyant John Wick: Chapter 4 looked like a funeral in grand style for the character of the elite assassin dressed to the nines, Keanu Reeves and the mastermind of the saga Chad Stahelski are indeed working on a fifth opus.

In the meantime, he tumbles Ballerinathe second spin-off of the franchise (after the series The Continental), a film dedicated to the character of Eve Maccaro, who we saw doing entrechats in the third episode, Parabellum. Eve, played by Ana de Armas (Blade Runner 2049, Knives Out, Blonde…) and nicknamed Kikimora (from the name of a spirit from Slavic folklore) is a super-killer trained by the terrible criminal organization Ruska Roma, coupled with a tough ballerina, coached by the mafia “director” Angelica Huston, capable of performing a series of entrechats until her dancing shoes are stained with blood…

The film recounts her damaged childhood, then, once she grew up, her vengeful crusade against those who massacred her family – a crusade which will see her encounter the small world of the “John Wick-verse”, from the immovable Ian McShane as manager of the Continental Hotel in New York, to the late Lance Reddick (in one of his last appearances on screen) as a refined concierge opening the doors to the underworld.

Between the all-purpose revenge story and the rehashing of the recurring motifs of the saga, Ballerina, directed by the returning Len Wiseman (who had not signed a feature film since the remake of Total Recall in 2012), does not seek to reinvent anything, but demonstrates quite a bit of invention, that’s already it, when it comes to energizing yet another combat scene, by putting in the hands Ana de Armas has a very varied arsenal, which allows her to fight with ice skates, flamethrowers or metal doors used as explosion shields.

The deliberately idiotic humor of the series (the line “Can I be frank?” said by a guy named Frank, that kind…) also helps to hold the edifice together, even if we feel that Gabriel Byrne has not completely found the half-puffish, half-tragic note that he was looking for, as a big bad guy who gives his henchmen their mission orders while carving up wild beasts.

In terms of winks, we note that Anne Parillaud herself is there, to ensure a sort of symbolic passing of the baton between “La Femme Nikita” (as they say in the USA) and Kikimora. But if the film disappoints, it is precisely on the level of incarnation. We expected a lot from Ana de Armas as a super-assassin, snapping at each other, if only because we loved her in the role of Paloma, James Bond’s clumsy side-kick and fighter in the best scene of No Time To Die. The actress also performs here in the fighting scenes, but her character, not helped by her overly banal backstory, seems very dull.

De Armas cannot resolve the equation that made the character of John Wick successful – this balance combining melodramatic interiority, mythological grandiloquence and the graphic purity of a comic book panel. Moreover, when Keanu Reeves shows up for a handful of scenes, he only needs to utter a monosyllabic line in his cavernous voice for the magic to work – and for us to measure the gulf that separates Baba Yaga from Kikimora. But Ana de Armas will undoubtedly have other opportunities to do better. In our John Wick world, a Ballerina 2 is a hypothesis that can hardly be ruled out.

By Len Wiseman, with Ana de Armas, Keanu Reeves, Ian McShane… Duration: 2h05.