While the John Wick franchise proper may be over, Lionsgate is still keen on expanding his world, hence the release of From The World of John Wick: Ballerina, the extremely wordy title of this past Summer’s action movie release that came and went with little more than a whimper. While Ballerina doesn’t hit the highs of the titular series, there’s still plenty of solid action that introduces a great new potential main character in the form of Ana De Armas’ Eve Macarro.
Shortly after her father is murdered by mysterious cult forces, Eve Macarro is found by Winston (Ian McShane, back to serve his franchise duties), who senses her desire for revenge. Bringing her to the legendary Ruska Roma assassin guild, Eve is trained in the art of guns, swords, and fisticuffs with the sole purpose of getting revenge on the ones who murdered her father. Along the way she cuts a bloody path across Europe, leading to her coming face to face with Baba Yaga himself, John Wick (Keanu Reeves, who appears thanks to the timeline of Ballerina fitting in between scenes of the third film, John Wick: Parabellum).
Despite an extremely exposition dump heavy first act, Ballerina quickly finds its footing as the movie continues on, throwing more action at you. A big key to this is Ana De Armas’ willingness to throw herself into the fight scenes. Even though she’s one of the most beautiful people on the planet, she’s not afraid to get beaten and bloody as she uses grenades, ice skates, flamethrowers, and even a firehose to get her revenge. The overall plot is nothing more than your average revenge action thriller, but the added John Wick seasoning and the fact that De Armas’ Eve is wanting to join the ranks of assassins as opposed to Reeve’s Wick wanting to get out adds a fun bit of variety to the series.
The 4K edition, like most physical releases, doesn’t offer as many special features as the glory days of DVDs and Blu Rays. But what is there is pretty good, all things considered. The first, simply titled “the Making of Ballerina”, feels like a “making of the episode” stinger you’d see at the end of an HBO show. It doesn’t do a lot of reveals about the making of the movie itself, but it has some cool looks at how some of the shots were pulled off. The first half of the ten minute special is more about the creation of Eve’s character than the action, but as it goes on it gets more into the structure of the fight scenes and stunt work.
“The Art of Action”, however, is the one fans of the series will most enjoy. There’s a cool focus on the stunt work and the performers working with the actors. The amount of prep and training that goes into making these look as good as they do is intense, and seeing Ana De Armas actually doing some of the stunts just makes it even more impressive when you watch the film. A lot of the stunt team is carried over from the previous Wick films and Chad Stahelski’s Stunt Studio, and that level of camaraderie really makes a big difference in how well the stunts are sold in the final product.
Nearly every major fight sequence in the film is touched on, and seeing how the stunt team and production department pulled off insane moments like the ice skate fight is a really cool look into the magic of movie making. Plus, you get some fun moments with Keanu behind the scenes, which is never a bad thing.
Overall, there’s nothing on the Ballerina 4k that makes it a “must buy” for those that aren’t already fans of the John Wick franchise, but for those that are, the disc is a good addition to pop next to the original four movies (and The Continental, I suppose). The look of the transfer is really top notch, even on my fairly barebones set up of a Playstation 5 hooked up via standard HDMI (thanks to the magic of modern technology and a TV bought within the last year, my TV automatically switches to the best output based on what is playing). While the world waits for news of a possible fifth John Wick movie, those looking for more headshots and insane action wouldn’t go wrong with getting the Ballerina 4k.
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