“Fight like a girl.” These are the words that Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas) needs to hear to win a fight in From the World of John Wick: Ballerina. And trust in this – there are many fights. Not just inside the John Wick / Ballerina movie franchise, but for real-life Latinos in Hollywood too.
First, a quick 411 on the flick that takes place within the larger John Wick world. We first meet Eve as a small child with her father Javier, played by Mexican-American actor David Castañeda (The Umbrella Academy). When papa is killed, a young Eve is taken in by the Ruska Roma – an organization that specializes in training assassins for contract killing. They use a ballet company as the cover, all run by The Director (Anjelica Huston). Flash forward some years and Eve is all grown up and on the verge of graduating her Ruska Roma training. All she needs is to kill her final exam, and she does.
Not surprisingly Eve begins her professional career by first avenging the death of her father. This has her bumping into old John Wick favorites like Winston (Ian McShane) and Charon (Lance Reddick) at The Continental Hotel in New York. Side note here: Ballerina is Reddick’s last role as the beloved actor passed away weeks after production wrapped. It also has her up against John Wick himself, Keanu Reeves.
New cast members include Colombian actress Catalina Sandino Moreno as Lena. Like Eve, she’s a hard-nosed female assassin. However, her loyalty lies with The Chancellor (Gabriel Burns), the leader of a cult of assassins who are housed up in the middle of a cold and snowy chain of mountains.
There are juicy twists along the road to vengeance and while they are predictable, they surprisingly allowed for more character development than I expected. What didn’t shock me was the level of action – it’s what we’ve come to know and revere from the John Wick franchise. Flame throwers, grenades galore, and more knives than a 5-star restaurant has in the kitchen.
That said, what is important here is the casting of Ana de Armas as the lead in this (potential) franchise. Early rumors suggest there will be a Ballerina 2, though no confirmation from the studio on that one yet. Yes, Hollywood showed us more Latinas in franchises lately like Zoe Saldaña in Avatar. But, Ballerina marks the first lead in an action franchise.
What’s more is there isn’t just one token Latino in the film. Adding both Catalina Sandino Moreno and David Castañeda to a film that isn’t centered on a Latino story means nuestra gente are becoming more mainstream. While it is just centimeters of progress in bridging a giant gap, it is forward movement.
And Ana isn’t just the “femme fatal” or the “sexy Latina.” Rather, her Eve is as fragile and beautiful as a bubble with the brawn of the Bellagio casino vault in Vegas. Like most Latinas in today’s world, she is a multi-hyphenate. She cracks craniums in a dress and heeled boots. She is a daughter and a helluva worker without compromising one over the other. Who among us can’t relate to that? Dare we say she is multi-dimensional? Gasp, I know!
And while the studios still have a long way to go when it comes to Latino press being allowed to champion their community (see my rant on that subject from Cinemacon), I still celebrate a win when we get it.
Is it enough? No. But, it’s a ballerina’s step in the right direction.
In the meantime, our community will continue to not only “fight like a girl,” but fight like a LATINA when it comes to opportunities in H-Town!
Ballerina is rated R with a runtime of two hours and five minutes. It is out in theaters Friday, June 6.
