Ana de Armas (“Knives Out”) action star-making turn begins as a rookie spy in James Bond's “No Time to Die.” In “Ballerina,” not only she steals the scenes, she owns every one of them as ballerina-turned-killer Eve Macarro, including holding her own, when the legendary Keanu Reeves (“John Wick” series) shows up to contain her in order to keep the peace between the rival criminal tribes.
After witnessing the murder of her father and escaping from the scene as a young girl, Eve was found by Winston Scott (Ian McShane), the owner of Continental Hotel, an honor-and-rule based hotel that functions as a neutral territory for criminals. Winston drops her off at Rusko Roma, an elite ballet academy that also serves as an assassin training ground, headed by the Director (Angelica Huston).
Eve is trained to dance and fight ferociously. At one point, the Director gives the petite and lithe Eve one simple advice, “Fight like a girl,” She will always be smaller and weaker, physically, so she will need to be quick on her feet, ruthless and outsmart her opponents.
This advice serves her well and her fierceness first shows in her solo mission to protect the daughter of a rich family from kidnapping in a neon-drenched nigthclub with an icy floor. There are no quick cuts here. Every beat-and-throw down is shown and felt. Eve then spots a scar on the hand of one of the bad guys, the same scar that she saw on one of the men who killed her dad all those years ago. The sports car's getaway scene is memorable.
From here Eve is on a vengeance to to find her dad's murderer, even after explicitly being ordered by the Director to stand down, as she would break the peace truce with a major criminal syndicate led by the Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne). Eve finds an operative, Pine (Normal Reedus), who escaped the Chancellor's Cult to provide a normal life for his young daughter, Ella (Ava McCarthy), just like her dad had tried to do for her. When Pine is injured and Ella gets kidnapped, Eve will stop at nothing to save her.
Eve's quest leads her to a picturesque Austrian lakeside village, where the Chancellor is holed up. It turns out that the entire village is occupied by his army of assassins. And here, Eve also learns about her tragic, true origin and faces the ultimate choice of fight or flight. Hunted and cornered by the vicious townspeople, Eve is undeterred.
Eve hits, stabs, slams, shoots, slices, slides, kicks, throws, falls, rolls, reloads, and uses every arsenal available to her at the moment to outmaneuver her pursuers and enemies. Doors and tables, pots and pans are used for offense and defense. Guns, knives and swords are rivaled by ice skates, grenades and flamethrowers. The firepower here is incredible, especially with the blazing fire contrasting with the falling snow on a dark wintry night. Both the choreography and cinematography are equally cool and beautiful.
Stylishly blending into the John Wick world, Armas is fiery and carries the movie like an action star. Brutal, quick, inventive and explosive. Steeped in underworld lore and heritage, and with a definite denouement that births a continuing chapter, Ballerina is a smashing spin-off, and no doubt, will return.