hydralien-40230

So to begin with, the whole point of training girls to dance ballet is still as lost as it was in main movies. The rest of the training makes sense, but dancing - just why? Why even call the movie Ballerina if she never dances, or ever uses it in fight choreography. But then, that's the whole thing of this film - it throws characters and events at the viewer because it's convenient to do so, but then explains nothing because that's not as convenient. Characters appear just to me gone a minute later. Key questions never even touched.

There are nice moments in the movie, most of them are in its occasional inventiveness, something that was lacking in main franchise since first two movies. Fights with plates, ice skates and flamethrowers are definitely memorable. Some clever scene layout where the fight is shown without actual fighting.

Overall though, it looks very pale comparing to John Wick movies - fight choreography is hectic and haphazard, especially when it comes to not using guns: every hit feels like luck, not deliberation. There's no fluidity or elegance in moves, and apparently the repeated "rules and consequences" ideology has neither rules nor consequences here.

It wasn't too bad, but it was unnecessary.

First and foremost, the movie is gorgeous throughout - cinematography, visuals, styling, makeup, effects, it's all amazing. Even (or especially?) when they come in contrasting scenes, in "impeccable vs dumpster" fashion.

The actors are all amazing, too - not to single out anyone especially, as they're all great, and portray the atmosphere of ferocious showbiz versus unstoppable aging versus appeal of youth quite extraordinarily. The despair, the intoxication, the disdain, the disgust, it's all there.

But then, there's the rest.

The "Cannes Palme d'or" script is straight as arrow 90% of the time, and then goes haywire. Not that it's not art, but it's incompatible - carefully weaving a thread of personalities conflict just to turn it into what it is in the end, is odd at best. I mean, I've enjoyed it visually, but it's not an amazing script.

The "look how tight the young body is" visuals play their role well, but then overstay their welcome to the point it feels just a screen time filler. Everyone looks amazing, but I got the point some 20 minutes ago, thank you kindly.

And the ending... It's great, but it belongs to a completely other movie. It's neither compatible nor relatable nor connected to the style, narrative or even the idea of what came before. Like it was slapped over the main material because it looked decadent enough.

It has about the same issues as the "Golden Compass" - there's too much stuff going on without much background, details or reasoning behind actions, which makes it look spontaneous and unexplained. And like how "His Dark Materials" TV series had been much more elaborate and comprehensible than even several movies could, same could've been done here. Alas, it wasn't.

It looks massive, actors are doing a good job, but it doesn't click (well, it didn't for me) because it's all too incoherent. Maybe for someone who read the source material it'd be a decent visual interpretation, but unfortunately I haven't read it, so it's not.

In addition to that, all costumes and CGI (apart from maybe the "centipede" crew and insides) look way too neat: it's a dystopian future where everything is patched together from old world salvage, but it all looks so new and shiny and clean it's off-putting.

Good enough for a background flick though.