After 4 Wick films filled with guns, blood and kills galore – it was easy to simply expect that the latest offering, Ballerina, would be more fodder for the kill machine known as the Wick franchise – but that would be a mistake.  This was something different, something better, something more.  I did not expect to like this film and I expected its reveal of heart and soul even less, but they pulled it off.  Director Len Wiseman (2012’s Total Recall) did a masterful job of balancing Wick lore and a central message of family and care.  All that packed into an R-rated romp!

Ballerina is not a spin-off of the Wick series per se, it’s more of an adjacent tale as evidenced by the appearance of John (Keanu Reeves) himself in the film.  Ballerina follows Eve (Ana De Armas; Blonde) a young precocious girl being raised by her father who, unbeknown to her, is a member of a secret society of assassins.  When her father fails at keeping her secret and hidden from that society, Eve gets recruited to become a ‘Ballerina’ which is just code for ‘a trained killer who gets to hide to the public behind the guise of being an aspiring ballet dancer.  But Eve is troubled, and while she trains as a ballet dancer and killer – her mind is stuck on her father, and the secret cult society that separated her from him.  Her mission:  Kill everyone and everything to get to this cult and exact a revenge like none we’ve ever seen on the screen.

What follows is an epic 2hr tale full of ‘Wick action’ but with more of a ballet like feel.  In fact, there are no shortage of action sequences you’ll see where you’ll feel like you’re actually witnessing a ‘ballet of death’ as Eve punches, kicks, shoots, and fireballs her way to the cult leadership.  Now this is a Wick film, so you can also expect to see a bevy of creative death sequences.  And I am still in awe of a major 2^nd act scene where Eve uses a crashed and moving car to take out some bad guys – cinematic glory.

But, where this movie shines and differentiates itself from the other Wick films is its heart and soul.  The heart comes via Eve who is young, beautiful, and torn inside.  You feel for her and you feel her.  Actress Ana De Armas is no stranger to evoking emotion from you (just check out her fractured turn as blonde bombshell Marilyn Monroe in the highly nominated film ‘Blonde’).  In Ballerina, this is someone you cared about, you also cared about her mission and you can feel her pain not just in the loss of friends along her journey, but also in her connection with her father, and even John Wick (Keanu Reeves) himself.

And that is where the ‘soul’ comes in.  Wick is brought into Ballerina’s world in many ways; first as an advisor.  A soft spoken, but highly serious, confidant who advises Eve on her path and then ultimately as a big brother who see’s her pain, her plight and helps give her the redemption she is so desperately seeking.  It’s all in the eyes with Keanu and his violent yet humble Wick character (aging wonderfully btw) is that quiet in the storm that guides and heals Eve even as she attempts to kill 3x as many people as Wick did in the previous 4 films.

This flick gets higher marks than any of the other Wick films (save the first one) for a lot of reasons, and the ‘minus’ grade I gave it is only because I have a personal problem suspending my belief for certain aspects of killer femme fatales.  What is it you ask?  I just can’t let go of the idea that any woman recruited into a CIA-like killer/assassin program would train and rise through the ranks and still stay as gorgeous as day 1.  You would undoubtedly have no shortage of breaks, scars and other afflictions that would hinder you using your beauty as a weapon.  But I digress…if you let that go, you have an explosive (just wait til you see the flamethrower war and Eve’s unique kill usage for hand grenade’s).

Lastly, I must give props to actor Gabriel Byrne (Weapons Of Mass Distraction).  Byrne plays ‘The Chancellor’ who is the leader of the cult of killers that Eve sets her sights on.  A Man with a vision for his own happy world gets upended by Eve but with grace, and satire and maybe a little too much monologuing (sic) which we all know is the bad guys worst mistake.  Byrne is strong, relentless, and eventually fearful which he played to a T much to my delight.

I give Ballerina (from the world of John Wick) an A-.  It is Rated R for extreme violence and cinematic sequences but no nudity – in fact, I’m hesitant to write, but this might just be a family movie if your kids can handle guns/death (with a little blood).   Running time is 2 hours and 5 minutes (and you’ll love every minute of it!).