Ballerina (15, 125 mins)
Verdict: Keeps you on your toes
Nobody should be misled by the title of Ballerina into trying to take their eight-year-old daughter to see it.
It’s marketed as ‘from the world of John Wick’ and is one of the most insanely violent films of the year.
But if you like that sort of thing, and don’t mind a plot so perfunctory that it’s really only there to link one outbreak of murderous mayhem to the next, then Ballerina will keep you on your toes.
It’s propulsive, action-packed and quite thrillingly bonkers. A duel between a man with a whopping flamethrower and a woman with a thunderous hose is worth the price of admission alone.
Keanu Reeves, as Wick, pops up only fleetingly, at the beginning and the end. He hasn’t learnt to talk any faster since the last film, but can still load and draw a gun twice as quickly as it takes him to complete a sentence.
Nobody should be misled by the title of Ballerina into trying to take their eight-year-old daughter to see it, writes Brian Viner (pictured: Ana de Armas in the film)
It’s marketed as ‘from the world of John Wick’ and is one of the most insanely violent films of the year
The star turn this time is Ana de Armas, who played a CIA agent in No Time To Die (2021) but as it turns out was only taking baby steps in the shooting-and-killing business.
Here she plays Eve Macarro, whom we first meet as a child watching her brave poppa being bumped off by hitmen with sinister crosses branded on their wrists.
Twelve years later, under the beady eye of Anjelica Huston’s director, Eve is being trained as an assassin herself.
She is also being trained as a ballerina, which seems like a curious blend of careers until you see how sharply she kicks men in the crotch. Nobody makes the gag in the film, so allow me. She is The Nutcracker.
Having completed her apprenticeship by executing one of her coaches, Eve is launched into the outside world as a high-class minder for rich kids at risk of abduction.
Cue a crazy martial-arts sequence at one of those New York nightclubs you only see in the movies, where everyone keeps dancing even after a dozen thugs have been shot or dispatched with ice-picks.
But all this is just a rehearsal. More than anything, Eve wants to nail the international criminal gang who killed her poppa, which leads her (after a spot of mass murder in Prague) to a picture-postcard Alpine village, snowy home to a ruthless cove known only as the Chancellor, suavely played by Gabriel Byrne.
With every single villager on his evil payroll, the Chancellor thinks he calls all the shots. But needless to add, killing Eve isn’t easy.
Under the beady eye of Anjelica Huston’s director, Eve (pictured) is being trained as an assassin herself
If you’re not into carnage, even when it’s inflicted by someone as pretty as (Tom Cruise’s girlfriend) Ana de Armas (pictured, with Ian McShane), you should pirouette well clear of Ballerina
Apart from some gloriously unlikely family dynamics, and a couple of appearances from a waxy-faced Ian McShane, that’s about it.
If you’re not into carnage, even when it’s inflicted by someone as pretty as (Tom Cruise’s girlfriend) Ana de Armas, you should pirouette well clear of Ballerina. Otherwise, Len Wiseman’s film is a blast.
Dangerous Animals (15, 98 mins)
Verdict: Horror-thriller with bite
Sean Byrne’s Dangerous Animals holds human life just as cheaply but isn’t what you’d call a blast.
It’s a horror-thriller set on ‘s Gold Coast that preys on our fear of serial killers, and our fear of the deep, to give us a murderer who knocks off young women by feeding them to sharks.
This is what’s known in the business as a genre mash-up: Jaws meets Se7en. I suppose we can count ourselves lucky there are only two genres mashed up. Jaws meets Se7en Brides For Se7en Brothers would be too much.
Sean Byrne’s Dangerous Animals holds human life just as cheaply but isn’t what you’d call a blast (pictured: Jai Courtney in the film)
It’s a horror-thriller set on ‘s Gold Coast that preys on our fear of serial killers, and our fear of the deep (pictured: Hassie Harrison and Courtney)
Thus the stage is set for lashings of genuinely suspenseful action and properly stomach-churning gore
Heather (Ella Newton), a nervy middle-class English girl on a gap year, cannot count herself lucky.
She and a fellow backpacker, a Canadian lad, make the fatal mistake of boarding a boat skippered by Tucker (Jai Courtney), a brash Aussie who advertises ‘diving with sharks’ experiences.
Soon, the boy is a goner and Heather is in chains below decks, where in due course she is joined by Zephyr (Hassie Harrison), a savvy American surfer subdued and dragged off by the monstrous Tucker.
Unlike Heather, Zephyr has a few tricks up her sleeve. She also has a steamy one-night stand behind her, with hunky local estate agent Moses (Josh Heuston), who won’t rest until he finds out what has happened to her.
Thus the stage is set for lashings of genuinely suspenseful action and properly stomach-churning gore, although the credibility of the plot goes overboard a few times, not least when we see just how many travellers Tucker has turned into shark bait without eliciting, as far as we can tell, the slightest interest from the Gold Coast cops.
That’s the thing with fictional monsters; too often, their stories don’t add up.
Goebbels And The Fuhrer (15, 135 mins)
Verdict: Smart, but disturbing
Goebbels And The Fuhrer, on the other hand, features a pair of real-life monsters whose stories are horribly, harrowingly true.
Goebbels And The Fuhrer, on the other hand, features a pair of real-life monsters whose stories are horribly, harrowingly true
The film cleverly fuses drama with actual newsreel footage and, as compelling as it is disturbing, is well worth seeing
But actually the whole point of Joachim Lang’s tremendously potent German-language picture is not to depict Adolf Hitler (Fritz Karl) and his devoted propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels (Robert Stadlober) as monsters, rather as human beings warped and twisted by their hatred of Jews and their love of power.
The film cleverly fuses drama with actual newsreel footage and, as compelling as it is disturbing, is well worth seeing.
All films reviewed are in cinemas now.