My life can be divided into two phases: Before Baba Yaga (BBY) and After Baba Yaga (ABY). When the first John Wick hit theaters in 2014, I was a senior in college, tagging along with my friend who was assigned to review the film for our student newspaper. When I say I knew nothing about John Wick, I mean nothing—never watched a trailer, read about the premise, or even saw a poster for it. Keanu Reeves was 15 years removed from The Matrix, and his career had mostly floundered since. There was little reason to believe a movie about some guy named John would move the needle—for Reeves, for the action genre, for anything, really.
That I had zero expectations going into John Wick made everything that happened in the film hit that much harder. At first, you’re emotionally destroyed by the death of Wick’s adorable puppy at the hands of Russian gangsters, a risky way to set the tone for a movie without alienating viewers. But then you find out that these goons unknowingly pissed off the Steph Curry of headshots, and John Wick is off to the races. Wick exacting revenge in brutal, balletic fight sequences? Soul-nourishing. A criminal underworld with a byzantine set of rules, its own form of currency, and an international hotel chain that serves as neutral territory for assassins? Unimpeachable. Don Keefer from The Newsroom showing up as a cop who’s completely terrified that Wick has been coaxed out of retirement and doesn’t even consider arresting him for murder? Iconic. By the time Wick wiped out the Russian mafia and adopted a new dog, I was already scheduling an appointment to get my entire back tattooed in the Baba Yaga’s image.
All told, John Wick delivered everything you’d want from an action movie (a capable lead who lets their fists do most of the talking; jaw-dropping fight scenes) and some things you didn’t even know you needed (knowingly over-the-top world-building; a villain so freaked out by the protagonist that he basically tells his failson to make funeral arrangements). Also worth celebrating: John Wick was a wholly original concept, the sort of mid-budget swing that’s become increasingly lost in the shuffle of Hollywood IP. The cultlike following for John Wick inevitably led to sequels, each one raising the bar when it comes to action, incorporating everything from horses and motorcycles to pencils and library books in Wick’s seemingly never-ending quest to kill hundreds of henchmen. (And who can blame him? I’d go to war for this dog.)
Of course, the real influence of John Wick can be appreciated through the slew of imitators that’ve emerged in its wake. It’s an easy template to follow: a solitary hero trying to move on from their violent past before some harrowing incident compels them to seek vengeance. On Netflix alone, there’s an entire cottage industry of movies meant to scratch the Wick itch, including Gunpowder Milkshake, Polar, Kate, and The Mother. Theatrical releases, meanwhile, have repurposed the John Wick premise as star vehicles for Bob Odenkirk, Dev Patel, Ke Huy Quan, and [checks notes] Santa Claus. Now, the Wickification of the action genre has come full circle: Friday marks the release of Ballerina, the first spinoff film in the franchise, taking place between the events of John Wick: Chapter 3—Parabellum and John Wick: Chapter 4.
Fresh off nearly stealing No Time to Die out from under Daniel Craig during the movie’s kick-ass detour to Cuba, Ana de Armas is Eve Macarro, a ballerina-cum-assassin trained by the Ruska Roma, the Belarusian syndicate that holds a seat at the franchise’s Illuminati-esque High Table. You’re gonna have a hard time believing this, but Eve is out for revenge. She’s hell-bent on avenging her father’s death and learning more about her mysterious past, no matter who stands in her way—even the Baba Yaga himself.
While de Armas is an intriguing lead for a John Wick spinoff, the franchise has sputtered of late: The 2023 prequel series, The Continental, was a bizarre misfire that swapped out the beloved Reeves for, of all people, Mel Gibson. As for Ballerina, it underwent extensive, monthslong reshoots last year under John Wick director Chad Stahelski, indicating that the action originally helmed by Len Wiseman wasn’t up to snuff. Throw in Lionsgate’s implementation of a controversial embargo where members of the press could share “spoiler-free enthusiasm” in May but had to avoid “critical social sentiment and formal reviews” until Wednesday, and Ballerina had all the makings of a shit show.
As it happens, Lionsgate caused a big fuss for no damn reason. Ballerina isn’t quite at the level of the mainline John Wick films, but it’s a worthy extension of the universe. The plot is threadbare, but you’re here for the action, and it delivers more of what we’ve come to expect. While a character does tell Eve during her assassin training that she shouldn’t be afraid to “fight like a girl,” in this case, it means employing the franchise’s standard gun fu choreography with the occasional crotch shot thrown in. (Not a complaint, to be clear.) When it comes to breaking the wheel, Ballerina’s greatest addition to the franchise is a climactic set piece involving multiple characters firing flamethrowers at one another—a moment that, for an action sicko like myself, was akin to a religious experience. (I wouldn’t be surprised if Ballerina set a Guinness World Record for the most stunt performers set on fire in a film.) Wick, meanwhile, is utilized like a closer, arriving in Ballerina’s final stretch to remind audiences that he’s one of one.
It’s certainly encouraging that John Wick hasn’t lost its fastball on the big screen, especially when there’s another spinoff film in the works—this time centered on Donnie Yen’s blind assassin, Caine—as well as John Wick 5. (“It will be really different, and everybody [will] see the trailer and go, ‘Holy fuck … I gotta see that,’” Stahelski said of the fifth John Wick. My body is ready.) It’s been a much different story, however, for the John Wick imitators. The Netflix Wicks (motion to call them the Netwicks?) have all underwhelmed, while the theatrical releases have been trending in the wrong direction. The Quan-led Love Hurts was flimsy and one-dimensional, far and away the worst movie I’ve watched this year—and I saw Captain America: Brave New World. As thrilling as it was to experience Bob Odenkirk: Action Star, I doubt many people were clamoring for a Nobody sequel where his protagonist goes on a bloody vacation.
The genre has become overstuffed with these types of films, leading to an encroaching feeling of John Wick action fatigue. With Ballerina, the John Wick movies themselves remain unimpeachable, but the imitators are just that—imitators. I’d see my favorite artist in concert as many times as I could; I wouldn’t do the same for a cover band. The hope is that, The Continental notwithstanding, John Wick can continue to avoid diminishing returns—that every extension meets the high bar set by the franchise’s action sequences. But the longer that John Wick goes on, the greater the risk is that these movies will hit a wall that even the Baba Yaga can’t overcome. (It took months of reshoots for Ballerina to stick the landing, after all.) The Wickification of action cinema only exacerbates the issue.
Of course, this predicament isn’t exclusive to John Wick: As we’ve seen with the superhero genre, when something makes bank, every major studio will follow suit and flood the market. Now, Wick-style fight choreography is no longer a novelty in Hollywood—it’s been strip-mined to the extent that Santa Claus stabbing goons with a candy cane fails to make a lasting impression. Since watching the first John Wick in college—a moviegoing experience I’ll cherish for the rest of my life—the franchise has earned enough goodwill that I’ll gladly follow it every step of the way. But just as superheroes are finally reckoning with audience fatigue after years of prosperity, the rest of the action genre could, in both a figurative and literal sense, use some fresh blood.
