Ballerina - Movie Review

Ballerina is the spinoff to the John Wick franchise. It takes place in between John Wick 3 and 4. The film was directed by Len Wiseman and stars Ana de Armas. And here, an assassin trained in the traditions of the Ruska Roma organization sets out to seek revenge after her father's death. When it comes to action movie plots, this is fairly common. I mean, the first John Wick movie was revenge over a dog. The second film and the third film, they continue to really expand the lore of the Continental and all of the rules, and it felt like a bigger world. Now that we know what this world is, Ballerina is basically operating as a revenge action movie that has a lot of really extended and admittedly very well done action scenes that are reminiscent of the John Wick feel. Beautiful wide shots that don't cut away that often, a lot of bloody carnage, a great score by Tyler Bates, and a handful of very memorable action set pieces, one including a flamethrower. What this film really has in its favor, though, is Ana de Armas as the lead. She was amazing in No Time to Die. She almost stole that whole movie, and that section that she was in of that movie came to life with such energy that it was inevitable that she would eventually be given a franchise like Ballerina. And she really proves herself here, throwing herself into these action scenes, doing tons of great stunt work. Yes, you can tell when a stunt double is involved, and just like you can in the John Wick movies. I mean, the guy falling down those steps in John Wick 4 definitely is not Keanu Reeves, and you can tell. And there's kind of a beauty to that. There was a time where you could almost always tell when a stuntman or a stuntwoman replaced the lead actor. Sometimes it was distracting. Other times, as a film lover, it's fun to understand that some people are really doing this, and you can tell that it's them, and their faces aren't necessarily being replaced with CGI faces, and you can kind of be like, yeah, I see the stunt double. In the case of this movie, it's not distracting at all, and if anything for me, it's just more of a tribute to these amazing stunt performers who are literally putting their life on the line for our entertainment. Reshoots in movies happen more often than you might think. In fact, most movies that are of a big-budget nature have reshoots written into their contract, an amount of budget that is set aside just in case they want to do that. It's incredibly common. It happens pretty much all the time. But really, all that matters is the final film. People can publish articles about whatever they want right now because it's a story, but nobody's gonna care about that when they're watching this movie, especially five, ten years from now. All that matters is the movie, and whatever they did, the film mostly really works. It's a series of extremely intense action scenes that are very well executed, brutal and bloody as all hell, anchored by a great performance from Ana de Armas. Yes, the story itself does feel like the movie is bouncing back and forth a little bit. Sometimes you're starting to grasp an emotional feel when it comes to the pull of the story, and then you're thrown into another very long and extended action scene, and because they're so well done, I didn't really care. It was also really great to see Lance Reddick one more time in a film. I didn't know that he had shot for this film. I assumed that John Wick 4 would have been the last film that he was in, but no, I mean, it was great to see him on the big screen again, and it just made me miss the fact that we're not gonna get any more great work from him. A large portion of this movie's marketing campaign rests on the idea that Keanu Reeves is in fact in the film, and I am happy to report that it's not like he shows up for like 30 seconds. He has a substantial amount of things to do in the film's third act, and that third act is 100% what you're paying to see, because the final 30 minutes of this film were immensely satisfying. She has to take on a very large sea of people. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I mean, it did take a minute to get there. The movie is paced in a way where it comes to life when she's doing really awesome things on the screen, but it does start to pull back a bit in between those moments, and that's basically because the story here just isn't as expansive as some of the other John Wick movies, and that's again not to say that the John Wick films are known for their story. We go to see these movies to see John Wick kick ass and kill people with a pencil and stuff. The story needs to work, and it needs to feel logical, and there needs to be some emotional pull to the reason why these things are happening, but really it's not why we're there. In the case of this movie, I think it works just well enough, and with those action scenes as good as they are, one of which in particular is one of my favorite of the franchise now, The Flamethrower, ballerina work for me. Would I watch more with her? Yes, I absolutely would, and I think whatever they learned making this movie, they're gonna take on the next one and make sure that the process of the production probably goes a little smoother, but this again, this is the type of thing that it's one of my least favorite things about like the movie-verse on the internet, is that we speculate so much about things that we don't really know because we weren't there. There's reports you might be able to link, there's articles you could read, but really all that matters is the finished product, and in this case, ballerina is pretty fun. Guys, thank you so much as always for watching. Look forward to more videos very soon. If you like this, you can click right here and get Stuckmanized.