Ballerina (2025)

Young Eve (Victoria Comte) sat in the hospital with a glass-encased ballerina in her lap; there was blood on her and the glass.  Earlier, she had been with her father when armed men attacked.  They were led by The Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne).  Her father fought until he was mortally wounded but succeeded in getting her away from the men.  Now she was alone.  Then Winston (Ian McShane) arrived and offered her a future.  He delivered her to the Director (Anjelica Huston) of the Ruska Roma.  Now she would train.

Twelve years later, Eve (Ana de Armas) had learned to dance, to shoot, and to fight.  She felt she was ready.  The Director agreed and dispatched her on a mission.  Success.  A tattoo was etched to her back to mark her success.  Two months later, she stood before a broken mirror and pulled a shard of mirror from her shoulder.  Then, she took a picture of the dead man and made her way out of the bathroom, stepping over multiple bodies on the way.  Oh, she's lethal.  As she left, she was attacked, but she kills her assailants.  One of them had the same mark as the men who killed her father.  The Director told her to forget it.  She could not forget it.

From here, the movie becomes one long series of gunfights and brawls.  Story, dialogue, and character development are unnecessary.  The plot of Electra avenging her murdered father is as old as literature; it needs no development, just execution.  The problem is the suspension of disbelief.  That she is an expert with a gun, knife, or sword is not a problem.  However, once she gets into an unarmed brawl, it's just silly.  During her training, the movie tried to inoculate against that, explaining that she had to set the terms of engagement to her advantage; that is, don't try to beat a wrestler by wrestling him.  Good advice.  Then she gets into physical brawls.  Sigh.  The amount of punishment she suffers during her extended fights are beyond what John Wick suffered, and it was a stretch for him.

Though the fights are well-choreographed and exciting, Eve's fight skills vary widely depending on what has been choreographed.  For instance, during a lull in combat, she came across the barista who server her coffee.  She's not a threat, right?  Wrong.  A battle commenced and was quite a challenge for Eve despite having a gun and a knife.  Later, Eve was faced with six men with assault rifles; no problem, she had a katana and sliced and diced the bunch of them.  Wow.  Lucky that she didn't have to face 6 unarmed baristas there instead.

The villains are stupid.  Despite having communication, the villains never converge.  They just wander the streets like video game NPCs who wait for Eve to show up and kill them.  She is on their turf, a town where she has never been and doesn't have a map, but she is always surprising them.  Where John Wick was on the run and being chased, these guys know exactly where she is headed: to kill the Chancellor.  How about we put the Chancellor in a non-bulletproof car to extract him but drive through the part of town where she was last reported?  Sound like a good plan?

John Wick (Keanu Reeves) makes a couple of appearances.  First, his dealings with the Director (John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum) are partly replayed and Eve briefly interacts with him.  Later, he arrived in the town where she was running rampant with instructions to neutralize her lest a war between Ruska Roma and the Chancellor was triggered.  When one considers how easily he subdued her, repeatedly, it is a wonder that she was such a threat to this town.  Nonetheless, it was cool to see John Wick in action again.

The movie ends with Eve receiving word that she has a $5 million bounty on her head.  Here is an opportunity for a sequel in which Eve must fight wave after wave of assassins, repeating the career of John Wick.

Eve is entirely too good after a couple of months in the field.  She, like Rey (Daisy Ridley) from Star Wars, is just naturally better than everyone because reasons.  Her backstory is too bland, especially compared to John Wick.  He had his dog killed and his car stolen.  That's original.  He left the life for a woman who soon died of cancer.  Yeah, that sucks.  He had years of experience where he earned his reputation as the top killer.  By contrast, Eve wants to avenge her dad.

"Hello.  My name is Eve Macarro.  You killed my father.  Prepare to die!"

Old hat.  Then there are the interesting twists that are wasted.  Oh, look, this assassin that we've been seeing around since Prague is actually her sister.  Whoa.  Maybe they will team up and...  she's dead.  Sigh.  Well, good thing we included that in the movie.  I never got invested in Eve's journey and was kind of indifferent whether she succeeded or not.

Worth watching to see the old gang from the John Wick movies, but otherwise a skip.

Secret Level

Amazon has a new original series called Secret Level.  It is an anthology of 15 stories - each about 10 to 15 minutes long - that are based on various video games.  The tone varies widely from one to another.  Some are quite dark while others are light and funny.  Arnold Schwarzeneggar has a role as a conquering king who repeatedly resurrects each time he dies.  His repeated efforts and failures are quite funny.  "And yet Aelstrom lives," he proudly states each time he finds himself alive again, always posing to display his muscular physique.  Such a great role for Arnie.  In another, Keanu Reeves is a mercenary pilot of a battlemech on a mission against a mysterious band who are almost as skilled as him, maybe even more skilled.  There is a Dungeons and Dragons story, a martial arts adventure, a modern day shoot 'em up between competing mercenary teams, a chase through space at lightspeed where the pursed and the pursuer age at different rates, a game of Go in a fantastical AI city, Warhammer 40,000, and even a bizarre take on Pac-Man.  Much of the animation was done with screen capture.  It gives the characters more vitality than typical CGI animation.  I hope some of these stories get another chapter next season.

Great popcorn fun and highly recommended.

Constantine (2005)

Somewhere in Mexico, a scavenger discovers the Spear of Destiny.  Immediately, he sets out north for Los Angeles.  He is unkillable, emerging unscathed when a car crashes into him.  Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, John Constantine (Keanu Reeves) arrives at a low-rent apartment building to perform an exorcism.  To his surprise, the demon was attempting to crossover; that should not happen.  Through happenstance, he encounters police detective Angela Dodson (Rachel Weisz).  Her twin sister, Isabel, recently committed suicide by jumping from a building.  Reviewing the footage, Angela hears her sister say, "Constantine." Together, Constantine and Angela use magic and rituals to discover why Isabel committed suicide and why demons appear on the brink of invading the Earth from Hell.

Constantine has a variety of sources and contacts: his driver/apprentice, Chas Kramer (Shia LeBouf), the witch doctor Papa Midnite (Djimon Hounsou), occult expert Beeman, and recovering alcoholic Father Hennessy (Pruitt Taylor Vince).  He also has a variety of weapons that are best suited to fighting demons and devils: dragon's breath, light incantations, flammable shroud, and the crucifix gun.  Despite the plentiful characters, the story managed to stay focused.  Constantine is a man destined to go to hell but lives his life by making enemies of its denizens.  Word is that Satan himself (Peter Stormare) will collect Constantine's soul.

Here is a post-Neo, pre-John Wick role for Keanu Reeves and it proves to be a perfect transition.  He still has knowledge and abilities beyond all others but is no longer a nigh invulnerable superhero in the Matrix.  Here he is world-weary, but still full of fight.  By the time we get to John Wick, he has tried to retire.

Reeves and Weisz have great chemistry but never get romantically involved.  Weisz didn't quite fit as an LA detective, but being more of a sidekick to Constantine, that didn't matter much.  LeBouf was better than expected.  His anxious manner and constant banter fit his character perfectly, for a change.  Tilda Swinton had another go at playing a male character, this time Gabriel.  Well, Gabriel is an angel.  In any case, she plays up the androgyny angle, reminding me of Orlando (1992).  Though her role is fairly small, she makes the most of it.  Peter Stormare would not have been my first choice for Satan, but proves to be ideal.  There is something off about him, his accent and manner, that gives him a creepy vibe.

Generally, lots of fun.  Too bad there wasn't a sequel.  Recommended.

John Wick 4 (2023)

It has been several months since John Wick (Keanu Reeves) survived being shot and falling off the New York Continental.  He has spent the time under the protection of the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) to heal and train.  He is now ready to take his revenge.  That does not go so well.  Meanwhile, the Marquis (Bill Skarsgard) deprives Winston (Ian McShane) of his hotel for failing to kill Wick (cf. John Wick 3).  Winston contacts John and suggests that he challenge the Marquis to a duel.  Of course, in order to do so, Wick would need a clan, which he no longer has.  Side quest time.  While Wick shoots his way through the various assassins sent to stop him, Caine (Donnie Yen) is also tracking him.  Though a friend of Wick's, he has been sent to kill him.  Of note, he is blind.  Can Wick survive long enough to attend his duel to the death?

The action is plentiful, perhaps too much so.  John Wick has gone from skilled assassin to superhero.  In one of his action pieces, he gets hit by several cars but keeps going.  The bulletproof suits have gotten ridiculous, such that anything but a headshot is negligible.  With how effective these suits are, why don't you all have hoodies?  The assassin world has become too big.  Of all things, I was reminded of Harry Potter and how ludicrous it was that the wizarding world was unknown to the muggles despite how vast it was.  They run radio stations with assassin boards and regular notices; scores of assassins are available at a moment's notice in Paris to run into John Wick's bullets.  Why do they all want to run up to Wick and shoot at pointblank range?  Have none of you heard of a sniper?

Though great fun to watch, the setting has gone off the rails.  Nonetheless, great popcorn fun and recommended.