"Ballerina" Leaps Into John Wick's Bloody World

It's been instructive to see "Ballerina," which opens this week, so soon after the new "Mission: Impossible" installment. In the latter, it's hard to top Tom Cruise's intrepid stunt work, which reaches its zenith in a pair of extended sequences (one in a submarine, the other on biplanes), but the story, involving a diabolical scheme using A.I. to commandeer and launch the world's nuclear weaponry, is a mere pretext. Going to "Mission: Impossible" for the story is like going to Casablanca for the waters. In contrast, "Ballerina"--like the four John Wick films that it's spun off from--is, strangely, far better at story than at action. The first John Wick film is the weakest, because the framework for the franchise was still unformed: a retired hit man (Keanu Reeves) gets back into action to respond to a mobster's attacks.