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    Watch Ana de Armas Fight Using Kitchen Utensils in ‘Ballerina’

    The director Len Wiseman narrates an action sequence from “From the World of John Wick: Ballerina.”In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.In one scene in “From the World of John Wick: Ballerina,” there may be too many assassins in the kitchen.The film’s title character, the trained killer Eve (Ana de Armas), has made her way to an alpine village in Austria as part of a mission to root out a cult. But violent townspeople keep getting in her way. In a restaurant, Eve encounters a cook who aims to do more with her knife than julienne.What follows is a brisk action scene in which kitchen utensils are wielded violently and plates are smashed frantically.Narrating the scene, the director Len Wiseman said that during rehearsal, the goal was to “explore and use everything in a diner that could be used as a possible weapon.”That included pans, a meat tenderizer and a pile of plates that became the centerpiece of the sequence, as the two performers are seen in an overhead shot smashing dishes over each other’s heads.“This was one of the hardest things to do,” Wiseman said during an interview in New York, “because the plates are breakaway plates. They have one job. They break.” This meant that the actors had to be really careful picking up the plates, but also had to make the action look forceful.In the end, Wiseman and his team just wanted to have a little fun with this sequence. “What I was going for,” he said, “is let’s have this one be violent, but also make people laugh.”Read the “Ballerina” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

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    ‘Ballerina’ Review: Ana de Armas Twirls Into ‘John Wick’ Franchise

    Ana de Armas twirls into the franchise as a ballerina-assassin with vengeance on her mind in this by-the-numbers cash grab.With a title as cumbersome as its germinating mythology, “From the World of John Wick: Ballerina” is a stone-cold, self-infatuated effort to couple another boxcar to the franchise money train. I regret to report that Keanu Reeves’s titular assassin does not appear in a tutu.He does pop in, though, ever so briefly, lest we lose interest before the promised fifth installment. Set during the events of “John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum” (2019), “Ballerina” is besotted with Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas), a lithe and lovely orphan who saw her father murdered and is obsessed with revenge. Inducted into the Ruska Roma, a cultlike clan whose ballet school fronts a contract-killer training facility, Eve practices pirouettes and punches with equal enthusiasm. Her toes are bloody, but her resolve is undimmed.A luxe orgy of mass murder, “Ballerina” dances from one bloody melee to another, its back-of-a-matchbook plot (by Shay Hatton) driven solely by arterial motives. As Eve defies the ballet school’s director (Anjelica Huston, more formidable than a roomful of Baryshnikovs) to pursue the well-protected head of a rival clan, the movie tends the franchise flame with a Wick-world checklist of familiar tropes. Like the impossibly creative, perfectly executed, utterly ridiculous fight sequences, which include Eve’s father single-handedly overcoming a literal boatload of would-be assassins, or Eve laying waste to the lethal residents of an entire Austrian village. Outlandish weaponry is a given, and “Ballerina” delights in deploying everything from expensive cookware to ice skates. There’s even a hulking, Dolph Lundgren type wielding a flamethrower.From time to time, the feverish slaughter pauses respectfully to allow English and Irish acting legends to inject brief moments of gravitas. Ian McShane’s menacingly dapper Winston is around to offer foster-fatherly advice and drop murky hints about Eve’s true parentage, and Gabriel Byrne appears as the mysterious head of the rival family and the bearer of further familial secrets. It’s all a bit much for Eve, who seems more relieved than scared when Wick himself shows up with a contract to stop her one-woman rampage. I suspect the audience will be equally thankful.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More