Ballerina

After the final John Wick Chapter 4 movie some thought we had seen the last of John Wick. But then came Ballerina, starring Ana de Armas as Eve Maccaro, another assassin of the Ruska Roma who wants to avenge her father’s death. The character first appeared in chapter 3 and that scene comes back and is extended from the viewpoint of Eve in this movie. John Wick features prominently in the finale of Ballerina and we get some short typical John Wick shoot outs. Eve, of course carries the movie as a female John Wick. It is not quite the same, the minimal, ‘emotionless’ acting style of Keanu Reeves as John Wick somehow matches well with the cartoon like violence and helps with the suspension of disbelief. In some strange way it makes John Wick to be something else than a man, a symbol if you like. This dimension I found lacking in the character of Eve but the movie was not bad as far as these type of movies go. I wasn’t aware who Ana de Armas was but then realized I had already seen her in the James Bond movie No Time to Die. Of course she plays a very small part in that movie but the acrobatics in the fight sequence of that movie would not have been out of place in Ballerina.