Brief Story Line
Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas - Ghosted, No Time to Die etc) had been training to become a ballerina assassin with Ruska Roma led by its Director (Anjelica Huston - Prizzi's Honor, The Addams Family etc) for many years as she wanted to get revenge to the killing of her father. In one of the nights living in the head quarter, she encountered for the first time John Wick (Keanu Reeves - Sonic the Hedgehog 3, The Matrix movies etc) and was given brief advice on this dangerous life.
After she gained some experience, Eve found a hired killer who belong to the same group that killed her father, later on revealed to be the Cult. Against the Director's instruction, Eve decided to find out more on the Cult from Intercontinental Hotel owner Winston (Ian McShane - Kungfu Panda 4, Lovejoy TV series etc). She was informed of a person of interest named Daniel Pine (Norman Reedus - The Walking Dead TV series, Triple 9 etc) who was being chased by Lena (Catalina Sandino Moreno - Maria Full of Grace, The Affair TV series etc), the right hand woman of Cult's leader Chancelor (Gabriel Byrne - Hereditary, War of the Worlds TV series etc). As Eve began her pursuit, she would have to fight her way against the army of Chancelor.
So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Well that was an awesome experience looking at the almost endless fights led by one woman army of Eve Macarro who fought swarm of assassins one of after another to get her vengeance. And it was a worthwhile journey as we were shown the various brutal, violent fights that were entertaining to watch, from the use of knives, guns, grenades and the amazing weapon that was used during the climax.
This movie started of pretty standard with the introduction of Eve which culminated to her training and finally became assassin. The story pace was quite fast with my wife noticing that a lot of things were covered in the first half hour. Although there was a bit of confusing part in the early scene after young Eve (Victoria Comte) was found out, but I did feel the part showing Eve's first assignment was done logically enough. The rest of the film, especially after Eve decided to pursuit Chancelor was really great as it was full of those amazing fights. And with duration of 2 hours 4 minutes (including closing credits without any mid or post end credit scene), it was more than sufficient to satisfy watching the actions. It's just too bad the Dolby Atmos effect was not available in the studio, but the standard sound system was still enough to add entertainment value.
For a movie that was set in the John Wick universe, this one did not disappoint. Let's face it that after the end of John Wick: Chapter 4, we really missed seeing him kick-ass and it was one of the reasons we really wanted to see this film. Now the story of this spin-off was not difficult to apprehend, though not as truly simple as the first John Wick. However, it was a good enough "origin" story of the Ballerina. Btw, I read that the screenplay by Shay Hatten (Army of the Dead, Rebel Moon etc) was not originally intended to be part of the franchise and was one of the Black List for 2017. The movie itself was directed by Len Wiseman who was famous for his works in Underworld, Live Free or Die Hard and several others.
The casting of Ana de Armas as the lead role was quite spot on to my opinion as she was convincing enough as the ruthless assassin who was able to do the merciless killings & looked really good in the action sequence. My wife was asking me if her character really appeared in previous film and I got to admit that I did not remember. But after finding out more info, she did appear in John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum, although she was portrayed by different person Unity Phelan, a real life ballet dancer. Aside from the names I mentioned above, there were few support cast like Sharon Duncan-Brewster (Enola Holmes 2, Sex Education TV series etc) as Eve's trainer Nogi, the late Lance Reddick reprising his role as Charon and several in minor capacity such as Choi Soo-young (New Year Blues, Not Others TV series etc) as Katla Park, David Castañeda (The Umbrella Academy etc) as Eve's father and few others.
Overall this was entertaining in term of actions. The fights were satisfying to see and the story was not complicated and it has a major climax scenes that were great. Though it might not be up to the level of top notch entertaining as the John Wick's movies, but I was pleased to see this one and hopeful to see subsequent films. The ending certainly teased the possibility. Let's find out if it's making a splash big enough to warrant for a sequel cause it's a bit early to tell now. Critics were quite positive about the film which is generally a good sign. So if you love John Wick, then I think you will enjoy this one too. It might not be perfect, but it's still entertaining to see so many bad guys being killed in one night.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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