Warning: Spoilers for Ballerina below!I’m not usually someone who’s too bothered by plot holes. Sure, it’s satisfying to open up a movie and discover it’s as precisely engineered as a Swiss watch, but it’s hardly a requirement of good entertainment. What really matters is the effect of what ends up on screen. If it works in the moment, who am I to complain if the math doesn’t all add up afterward?
But Ballerina, a movie I enjoyed, is really testing my ability to suspend disbelief. The newly released John Wick spinoff aims to launch Ana de Armas’ Eve as a new protagonist with her own branch of the franchise, and it does the risky thing of trying to insert itself in the middle of the existing timeline. Ballerina‘s cast features some familiar faces, including Winston and Charon, Anjelica Huston’s ‘the Director,’ and, yes, John Wick himself. As nice as it is to see Keanu Reeves’ ᴀssᴀssin of few words back in action, though, I’m struggling to get over his role in this film.
John Wick’s Return For Ballerina’s Climax Makes No Sense
And The Movie Even Made Sure I Noticed
Officially тιтled From the World of John Wick: Ballerina, the new movie is primarily set between the events of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum and John Wick: Chapter 4, with a notable bit of crossover with the former. Early in the film, while Eve is still a Ruska Roma trainee, she witnesses the freshly excommunicado John ask the Director for safe pᴀssage out of New York City. His request is granted – but at great cost. His ticket is torn; his ties with the family are officially severed.
In the movie’s final act, after Eve has wreaked havoc on the cult in Hallstatt, John Wick crosses her path again. The cult’s villainous Chancellor calls the Director and threatens war between their two organizations, citing a centuries-old peace that Eve has just broken. As a last-ditch attempt to avoid conflict, the Ruska Roma agree to send someone to take her out by midnight. That someone, of course, is Wick.
My issue isn’t so much with what happens in this scene. Eve and John’s fight, with the former clearly outmatched and the latter determined to avoid taking her life, is quite fun, and his decision to ultimately help her is a compelling development for both their characters. My issue is him being there in the first place.
Does the threat of this cult really outweigh the risk of incurring the High Table’s wrath again, for either of them?
It makes no sense that the Director would send John to do this job, let alone that he would accept. Ballerina has gone out of its way to remind audiences that Wick has been cast out of the Ruska Roma. The family risks a war they seem desperate to avoid if their operative fails to stop Eve, and they choose to send someone they no longer have any hold over? Even someone without knowledge of the wider franchise should at least find this development questionable.
Reintroduce the context of the John Wick movies, and it’s even more confusing. John remains excommunicado at this point, and the High Table had the Director stabbed through both hands for helping him escape New York. What would they do if they discovered that not only did she hire John a couple of months later, but she knew where he would be and when without informing them? Does the threat of this cult really outweigh the risk of incurring the High Table’s wrath again, for either of them?
Should Ballerina Have Given Up Bringing John Wick Back?
At Some Point, You Need To Have Some Faith In The New Hero
I can understand why Ballerina‘s filmmakers felt the need for a John Wick encore, on multiple levels – I can only imagine the reaction if Lionsgate marketed the movie on his return and his first scene was all there was. But the story contortion required to make it happen was ultimately distracting. I’ve pulled on that loose thread since leaving the theater and watched more of the film unravel. (Didn’t that cult-marked maniac who tried to kill Eve after a completed job break this supposed truce first?)
I can’t help but wish the movie had found another way to handle Ballerina’s ending, even if that meant leaving John out of it.
I’d rather be thinking about what I liked about Ballerina. Ana de Armas proved what everyone knew after No Time to Die by emerging as a convincing action star. The film’s approach to action is (to extrapolate from a pair of conspicuous Easter eggs) the Three Stooges to the main films’ Buster Keaton, giving the violence a slapstick silliness that had me laughing more than I expected. A city of ᴀssᴀssins that can all be activated at a moment’s notice is a truly cool idea.
I can’t help but wish the movie had found another way to handle Ballerina‘s ending, even if that meant leaving John out of it. Imagine, for example, that the Director sent Nogi, Eve’s Ruska Roma mentor. A similar dynamic, but with reason to be much more emotionally charged, and it would’ve left Eve with a difficult choice to make. In the current version, the big choice is really John’s; Eve is pretty much incapable of killing him even if she wanted to, and walking away isn’t an option for her character.
It’s as if Ballerina felt the need to reᴀssure viewers that this was still, at the end of the day, John Wick’s franchise. Not a reminder I needed. If they choose to continue with Eve’s story (and I hope they do), I’d like to see de Armas trusted to conclude her film on her own, without having to bend continuity to its breaking point.
