Ballerina - Vengeance Thy Name is Eve

IMDB

The world of John Wick grows with this next spin-off that takes place between John Wick 3 and John Wick 4. Ana de Armas plays Eve. A young woman who's father was killed when she was a child. Winston, owner of the NYC Continental, brings her to The Director (Anjelica Houston) who trains her in dance and you know, assassining.

Eve works hard and for her graduation, she has to protect a charge with rubber bullets. Cue the fight at the club with techno music and patrons being way to calm in a fire fight. One of the people she takes out has a mark on their hand...the same mark on the people that tried to take her as a child and killed her father.

The Director knows all about the mark, their group has a secret truce with this Cult for centuries and refuses to help. Thus Eve's journey to hung them down begins.

The fight scenes were incredible as always. Ana may be small, but you do not want to step up to her. Every scene is intense and she uses her environment to her advantage while in combat.

It's a John Wick movie, so you know what you're getting yourself into. It's an exciting action-adventure movie. Tight action sequences that'll have you cheering and wincing multiple times. Ana is great with the physicality and fight choreography and would want her protecting me any day.

Her journey to find these Cultists leads her to Prague where one of these Cultists is staying. A group is in the shadows, hoping that Eve will break the rules of the Continental and kill him. This group? The Cult. They want Daniel Pine (Norman Reedus) dead and they want his daughter. With memories of what happened to her father, the two work together when the Cultists attack the Continental.

When the girl is taken, Eve tracks them down to a secluded town in the mountains. Though, it's less town, more compound. Eve versus an entire town of assassins...solo. And she's on the hunt for the leader who killed her father. The Chancellor, the leader of the cult, calls The Director and swears full retaliation if Eve is allowed to continue and she agrees to have Eve killed by midnight, sending in...John Wick.

She uses every lesson she's learned to survive the nearly constant onslaught of assassins that are trying to keep her from her goal. And when she finds her new toy in storage they feel the...burn.

Again, with these movies, its less about the story (though it does have it) and more about the spectacle of the fight scenes. This movie went a few steps above a typical Wick movie, thought not as big as the last one.

As the story unfolds and you learn about Eve's true past, you root for her to win the day and defeat The Chancellor.

It's a John Wick sequel. It's a summer popcorn movie. Absurd action sequences, but done way better than most movies. While most movies do multiple (and i do mean MULTIPLE) shots to show a short fight scenes, this franchise stretches the shots out and uses much less cuts. This gives the fight scenes a little more realism. You feel every swing of the ax, every shot of the gun, every blast with a flamethrower.

I enjoyed this movie. It was fun and the damage Ana did as Eve was nothing short of Warrior Queen. With the open ending, I do hope to see a sequel to this in the future. See it in theaters or wait till it streams, but if you love the franchise you do not want to miss this one.

4/5