Ballerina 2025
This is the review I just put up on Letterboxd:
BF and I argued, well, I guess, disagreed and debated about this movie. He felt that, and he may chime in at some point, that if we are to be watching a John Wick film (spoilers - John Wick is involved in most of the third act), then we should be watching a John Wick movie.
This is set in the John Wick Universe, but this is not a John Wick Movie.
I am ok with this.
Now, I do absolutely have my issues with studios wringing every ounce of energy and soul from their IP and franchise nostalgia to get that fat cash. I do. I find it oddly hilarious that South Park was the one to bring everyone’s attention to “Memberberries”.
However, I am totally ok with world building. You start with your core universe. You tell your writers, “Hey. Here are the character specs. They have these particular traits. X# hit points. Armor class “Y” with this particular magical item or inherent “plus2” for using a lute or some shit. Don’t kill my characters off, but you can use them in your story. And, I’ll use yours and promise, for the most part, that they won’t end up pantsless in an alley in Greater Fistyurface.”
And, that’s how you get Thieves’ World. Sure, everyone mostly only cares about Hanse and Tempus, but you also get the opportunity to get flashes of fun with someone like Jubal or Ischade.
Or, for you Star Wars nerds, Mara Jade.
I see you, Star Wars nerds. I see you.
Is Eve a Mara Jade? No. Not yet. And she may never be. But, if we are going to live in a world where studios insist on avoiding risks and playing in their extended IP universes, then I am ok with trying to create some characters that we might be able to use to build out on existing worlds. Eve is flawed. Honestly, the biggest take away for her character is that she has a lot of pent up rage and a 8 out of 10 skill set, but she almost always needs someone to take out that one pesky character she missed when she should have been properly sweeping the site. That’s not an heir to John Wick. But, to be fair, he’s got an outsize rep as the Baba Yaga and he’s dead at the end of Chapter 4. No one is ever going to be John Wick again. Not even John Wick.
Not everyone in the John Wick Extended Universe needs to be John Wick.
But, you can create a character that was not originally part of an existing IP and take it for a spin in an entertaining way that might move the franchise forward a bit. Norman Reedus, who makes an appearance in this movie for a bit, did that in The Walking Dead tv show. Daryl Dixon is not in the comic book. But, Reedus’s character is arguably a reason the show stayed on the air as long as it did.
Ana de Armas’s Eve was a fun watch and if they decide to make the next movie (I’m just assuming there will be another movie in this universe at some point) about her as an exhausted foster mother to Ella, the other orphaned grandchild of crime she found full of hate at the end of this movie, I’m ok with it.
Just be true to the specs on the character sheets, don’t kill another writer’s character off without permission, and, for the love of God, stay true to the idea in the John Wick-i-verse, as in Thieves’ World, that there are no heroes, only survivors."