'Ballerina' Is a Worthy, Action-Packed Return to the World of John Wick
Plus: Thoughts on the latest 'Karate Kid' movie
Hey folks, David Chen here. I decided to take a quick trip to the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas last week, which is why things have been a bit quiet here (I’ll be podcasting about that experience on my Patreon). But I’m now back and ready to bring you some quick thoughts on Ballerina, plus the latest Karate Kid film that’s out in theaters now. I’m also still planning to publish part 2 of my interview with the Final Destination Bloodlines directors (read part 1 here) so be on the lookout for that.
Ballerina — or to use its extremely clunky full title, From the World of John Wick: Ballerina — poses the question: Can you make a John Wick movie without making John Wick the protagonist? I’m pleased to report the answer is a resounding yes.
Ballerina takes place between the events of John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum and John Wick: Chapter 4, pulling back the curtain on the the Ruska Roma, one of the organizations that sits at the High Table and that runs the school for ballerina assassins we only glimpse in the Wick movies. Before we get there, the film opens with an extended flashback into the childhood of Eve Macarro (Victoria Comte plays the young version of Eve while Ana de Armas plays her as an adult). We learn a bit about Eve’s family and some traumas she experienced as a kid before we cut to present day. Eve has joined up with the Ruska Roma and is a thriving student under the watchful eye of the Director (Anjelica Huston). While Eve’s job is ostensibly to protect the vulnerable, She has her sights set on vengeance against the people who wronged her as a child. Her machinations eventually put her on a collision course with the deadly forces in the Wick universe.
The bad news is that the plot and characters of Ballerina are threadbare even by the standards of a John Wick movie. The timing of many of the film’s events feels totally coincidental and Eve as a character is woefully underdeveloped. Ana de Armas brings an incredible physicality to the role — you really believe it’s her doing all the stuff you see in the movie! — but she’s given little time or opportunity to really do anything else. And as with many of the Wick films, the story is total nonsense.
The good news? None of that matters.
Simply put, Ballerina has some of the most audacious, inventive, and thrilling action scenes you are likely to see in a film this year. While Len Wiseman has taken over directing duties from series regular Chad Stahelski and cinematographer Romain Lacourbas has replaced Wick shooter Dan Laustsen, Ballerina still feels very much like it belongs in the titular world of John Wick. The locations and characters are stylish as hell, the action is balletic and creative, and the main players in the internecine warfare are easy to comprehend.
I’m a big fan of the John Wick franchise and one of the things I appreciate the most is how the filmmakers always want to one-up themselves and show you something you haven’t seen before. “What if we used attack dogs? What if people just threw knives at each other the whole time? What if we set a fight scene at the Sacré-Cœur stairs in Paris?” That mentality was clearly infused into Ballerina, which has several fight scenes using military grade hardware that are unlike anything I’ve ever even seen attempted before, let alone actually pulled off successfully.
Ballerina is 2 hours long and I’d estimate at least half to three-quarters of the film is just straight, uncut, late-stage-John-Wick-style action. My audience gasped and applauded at some of the biggest beats in the film. After one particularly audacious moment, a guy sitting behind me involuntarily exclaimed, “THAT IS ABSOLUTE CINEMA.”
Indeed it was, sir. Indeed it was.
From the World of John Wick: Ballerina is out in theaters June 6th.
‘Karate Kid: Legends’ Tries to Be Two Movies and as a Result, Both Are Bad
This one hurts.
I was super excited about the recent release of Karate Kid: Legends. The trailer above kicked all sorts of ass. Jackie Chan, one of my favorite on-screen performers of all time, returns to the role that he took on in the 2010 Karate Kid film with Jaden Smith. And perhaps most importantly, this time they got an Asian kid (Ben Wang) to be the Karate Kid! I was rooting for this film so hard I even gave it a premium spot in my Summer Movie Wager.
I’m crushed to report that the movie is not very good at all. It starts promisingly enough: Kung fu student Li Fong (Wang), training under the tutelage of Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) is forced by his overbearing mother (Ming-Na Wen in a thankless role) to move from Beijing to New York. There, he meets a father-daughter pair, Victor and Mia (Joshua Jackson and Sadie Stanley, respectively) who run a local pizza joint. Victor is heavily in debt to a local loan shark and needs to compete in a boxing match in order to get the money back. Victor is woefully out of practice, so Li Fong offers to train him using his Kung fu knowledge.
The early parts of the film are basically a beat-for-beat remake of the original Karate Kid, only this time, Li Fong is the teacher and not the student. It’s a fresh take that has some potentially interesting dramatic possibilities. Sadly, the film rapidly jettisons all that because apparently, in order for this movie to exist and make money, it needs to figure out a way to get Ralph Macchio and Jackie Chan into the mix so they can be on the poster. The second half of the film feels like a totally separate movie bolted onto the first. It suddenly becomes Li Fong that needs training for a big competition, so the film concocts some silly reasons as to why both Daniel LaRusso and Mr. Han need to be there for him.
Karate Kid: Legends is not totally unenjoyable. There are a handful of solid fight scenes and I’m never gonna turn down an opportunity to see Jackie Chan in anything, no matter how terrible. I even appreciated how the movie tried to tie Mr. Han’s history back to Mr. Miyagi from the original movies. But the proceedings are so rushed that neither of its two storylines are given any room to breathe or mesh with each other. The result is something unwieldy and unmemorable — a real missed opportunity.
Karate Kid: Legends is out in theaters now.
Other Stuff David Chen Has Made
On Decoding TV, Patrick Klepek and I discussed the incredible season finale of The Rehearsal, which is going to be an all-timer.
Also on Decoding TV, we covered the season 2 finale of The Last of Us, which was much, much more disappointing than The Rehearsal.
On The Filmcast, we also reviewed Karate Kid: Legends and my co-hosts felt similarly to me about it.
On Instagram/Tiktok, I talked about what it was like to be at the World Series of Poker wearing a t-shirt for the movie Sinners. I also reviewed the DBOX experience for Karate Kid: Legends.
