(ESP-ENG) Ballerina | A worthwhile spin-off - Movie Review!
Hello friends, good vibes to all.
As I have been saying for quite some time now, the film industry is plagued with prequels, sequels and spin-offs; and it seems that originality in Hollywood is becoming more and more limited. But not everything always has to be bad, there are things that are really worth seeing because they are well made, because the universe to which they belong is very good and because the story, at least in this case, fits very well with the parallelism of John Wick. What I mean is that it's not a film that was made lightly nor was it made just because, I think the story is pretty decent and as I said it fits very well with everything that theoretically happens around it.
As you know John Wick has 4 movies, Ballerina takes place between the events of the third one: Parabellum and this is known by John's physique. Here we have Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas), an orphan girl/young woman who was trained by the Ruska Roma, this organization that also trained Wick, since her father was killed. Eve grew up with revenge on her mind as her only driving force was, once she was ready to start work, to find her father's real killers and eliminate them. Once the search begins she begins to learn things that are linked to her past that she did not expect and now despite that she will have to move forward in her mission.
This is a typical movie that revolves around revenge and has three well marked parts. The beginning is Eve preparing herself as a child for what she has in mind to do, the development is all the way she will have to do to get to the people who were behind the death of his father and the end is what everyone imagines, I think that even if you have not seen the film you know perfectly well how everything can end. At the plot level there are not many twists, only one that I consider important, but otherwise it must be said that we are facing something somewhat linear and continuous, it is a film that always goes forward.
The action scenes starring Ana de Armas were very well done, the choreography level was quite accomplished. Before the premiere, she was seen training hard for the role and I think she achieved it with flying colors, it is not easy to be on par with what Keanu Reeves does, I don't think it was the intention either, but in the end people will always compare both works. Ana's work is spectacular and has nothing to envy; agility, dexterity, strength, weapon maneuvering, knowledge of a martial art and above all resistance are things that were developed and the result ended up being top.
Obviously there is a lot of violence but that goes without saying. It's unavoidable because it's the nature of the plot and it's what makes these films so eye-catching. Being a spin-off it's also obvious that we'll see characters from the John Wick universe like the late Lance Reddick as Charon, Ian McShane as Winston and a couple of others. But there are new people like Norman Reedus, known from The Walking Dead. I expected more from him, his character is a bit weak, I didn't see him as into the action as I would have liked. And to close it is clear that Keanu also has a stellar appearance, in fact more relevant than imagined, which increases the value of the film.
I think it's a good spin-off, the plot is very rounded and works very well. Ana de Armas' performance is very cool, pleasantly surprised with her. I give it 8.5/10, I was not disappointed. I went with expectations a little low but in the end I enjoyed it a lot. It lasts more than two hours. I leave the trailer here.
¡Un abrazo a todos, nos vemos en la próxima!
Well my people, that's all for today, I hope you liked it.
¡Hugs to all of you, see you next time!
Ana de Armas' performance was certainly brilliant, the fights very well choreographed. I think the plot needed more interaction with John; I would have liked to see more of him.
Ciertamente la actuación de Ana de Armas estuvo genial, las peleas muy bien coreografiadas. Creo que le faltó cruzar más la historia con John, me hubiese gustado ver más de él.