June 14, 2025 • 11 mins
ICYMI: ‘Later, with Mo’Kelly’ Presents – Mark Rahner’s review of the new John Wick spinoff film ‘Ballerina’ in the Rahner Report - on KFI AM 640…Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app & YouTube @MrMoKelly
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Later with Mo Kelly on demand from
KFI A M six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mark talks about pontificates, pop culture, ron and Report with
Mark Ronner.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
K if I am six forty, it's Later with Mo Kelly.
Let's get to Mark Runner and the Runner Report.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
All right. We never got a chance to talk about
Ballerina last week. There was something going on. I can't
remember what it was, so we're gonna play some catch up.
The full title is from the World of john Wick Ballerina,
which is kind of a mouthful. We've had four John
Wick movies with Keanu Reeves, all entertaining and fun, especially
if you're a violent sociopath. We had a spin off
(00:54):
TV show called The Continental, which didn't do a lot
for me. I think I dropped it after an episode
or two. Now we've got to spin off movie be
with a female lead. Ballerina with an adarmis. Sorry, it's
from the World of john Wick Ballerina. Do we need this?
Here's a little bit of the trailer.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I know you, I know your pain.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
This isn't done until they're dead. We do not swear
to this, Senias. When you think of me, you should
think of five those people that you're looking for. I'm
(01:39):
in this hotel right now. Reason from the ashes, you
don't choose to be a killer.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
You are chosen.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
That's right, You are chosen. And you could hear some
of the mayhem in there, but the mayhem's pretty impressive.
I am agnostic on a de Armis as an act
heroin and an action star, and even as an actress.
Her Marilyn Monroe movie Blonde left me cold. I don't
even think she shook her Cuban accent for that. The
year before that, in twenty twenty one, she had a
(02:11):
small role in the embarrassingly bad James Bond movie No
Time to Die, and she seemed able to do some
action in that. Here's where we got to digress and
aggress the elephant in the room and risk pissing some
people off. Female action movies and shows are tricky to
pull off, and it's rare when you see one that
actually sells the fights with a woman star, especially against men.
Remember Haywire with Gina Carano from twenty eleven, or pretty
(02:35):
much anything with Michelle Yo when she was younger. Good
female fight action, Atomic Blonde with Charlie's Terren wasn't bad either,
and we could go down the list because I try
to watch most of them, peppermint Ava, the Woman King,
those weren't quite as good. The pragmatic aspect is this
last I look this stuff up. Women have an average
twenty five to forty percent less strength than men and
a generally higher percentage of body fat. Don't blame me.
(02:58):
There are always exceptions, but we're just not the same.
If you think taking note of that is sexist, your
argument's not with me. It's with biology, evolution, Galactus, the
great god Cthulhu. I don't make the rules, but I
dealt with the physical differences myself a lot during the
time I taught taekwondo when I was younger. Yes, women
against men were generally a mismatch. But on the other hand,
(03:20):
and Mo, you might relate to this, the female students
were always the first ones to hurt me during sparring
and haul off and kick me without hesitation in the balls.
That's true. Okay, that's accurate. Thank you for that. And
that's where Ballerina is smart right out of the gate
by addressing that little five foot six on a dyarmis
plays a woman who when she's tiny, her father gets
(03:41):
killed by bad guys. Then she's taken in and trained
by a ballet assassin group you know those. It's led
by Angelica Houston from the Wick Verse movies The Wick World,
And during all the training she's told directly, you're not
going to beat men fighting on their own terms. You
gotta fight dirty, fight creatively, fight like a girl. And
the results are pretty entertaining. They're hyper choreographed, but they're fun.
(04:05):
These wik movies, I think, do what Bruce lees Entered
the Dragon did in nineteen seventy one and what Jet
Lee's Kiss of the Dragon did in two thousand and one,
and surprisingly few others have really bothered with, which is,
they give hyper violent martial arts fights all the lavish
production value of a real, big Hollywood movie. Ballerina is
a terrific looking movie, with real actors, great sets and locations,
(04:27):
a cool score. The last act takes place in a
little European mountain village entirely populated by bad guys, and
it looks terrific. Old Gabriel Byrne is back on film.
He's the leader of the bad guys. Norman Ritus from
The Walking deads in it, but not as much as
the trailers might lead you to believe. Keanu Reeves appears
his Wick and it's more than just a cameo, so
(04:47):
you can forget about the class action suit on that
front if you care. Ballerina is set between John Wick.
Chapters three and four. Ian McShane and Lance Reddick are
back from the Wick movies. Rehdick died in twenty twenty three,
and his scenes in Ballerino were apparently the last things
he ever filmed, So if you're skeptical Ballerina might not
deliver on the action, I'm here to tell you it's
(05:08):
packed with relentless psychotic violence, fists, knives, compound fractures, face shots,
the same kind of gun foo from the Wick movies,
and not just gunfu. As Anna's character Eve breaks the
rules of the wickworld to get revenge for her dad
in places that are off limits, we get ice skate foo,
we get flamethrower foo, we get some hand grenade foo.
(05:31):
It does get pretty Warner Brothers. Let's be clear, it's
all pretty dumb. I mean, Wick still has his bulletproof suits,
so you know you're not watching the French connection here.
And the story to the extent that one even exists,
is just a delivery device for a bunch of action
set pieces. It only has a fraction of the character
of the Wick movies, and poor old Gabriel Burns reduced
to that cliche of the boss who keeps sending henchmen
(05:54):
after an unstoppable killing machine. Bring her to me, kill her.
We've seen it a million times. I don't even know
why they bothered putting Norman Ritas in it either. He's
barely in the movie. This may be indicative of a
troubled production. You may have read that Ballerin was pushed
back a whole year, had a bunch of reshoots, was
taken over by Chad Stahelski, the director of some of
the Whig stuff. The uh, we'll never know the truth,
(06:16):
because it's not like the filmmakers are going to come
out and spill the beans in interviews. Every big movie
has reshoots from Marvel on down, and it doesn't matter.
What's on the screen matters. And what's on the screen
is honestly some fun trash. It's nice looking, got plenty
of creative violence, but there's nothing memorable about it. It's
not a very good movie. It's poorly written and barely written.
(06:36):
What winds up being weird is that Anna Diarmis can
sell the action, but she just doesn't have the charisma
to make you care much about her. I like Keanu Reeves,
but he has what you might call a limited range,
and he still blows her off the screen whenever they're
in a scene together. I wanted to leave her behind
and go with him. I went in agnostic about her
(06:57):
and came out the same way. She's no Pam Grero Okay.
I feel like there's terminology for something that's kind of
fun for a couple hours of pounding, but forgettable and
even kind of cheap when you look back and think
about it. And I feel like Tuala might know what
that word is. Maybe it'll come to me. I don't
need a sequel to Ballerina, but I'll probably watch it
(07:17):
if they make one, because, like I said, I try
to watch most of them. We have you seen this yet?
Speaker 3 (07:22):
I have not, But I do have a question, and
I think you answered it as to whether Honor to
Amis is an actual star in her own right or
is she a good co star In movies you.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Can't really predict or explain how an actor strikes everybody.
There might be some people who think she's the greatest
actress on earth. I don't like I said the Blonde movie,
which a lot of people were raving about, I didn't understand.
I didn't. I mean, I feel like she gave a
lot to that performance, and it was a pretty explicit thing.
(07:57):
But if you can't even shake your accent to try
to sound like Marilyn Monroe, you got to you gotta
let me in on what you're going for here, because
it's intentional. Uh. I think we take Keanu Reeves for granted.
I mean he's Yeah, I love Steve McQueen, but he
had his limitations too. You had to put him in
the right thing.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
But yeah, I mean Keanu Reeves, he's not It's not
that he has a lack of range. I think he
accentuates that, which he does very well. We're not looking
for a biopic with Keanu Reeves. We're not looking for
a period piece by a large with Keanu Reeves.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Didn't need him in Shakespeare, not at all.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
But he works very well in this hyperbolic action genre
that he dominates. And maybe Hona de Armas has not
found that vehicle for her yet the things I've seen
her in I thought she was fine as a complimentary piece.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
But I don't know if I want to wait, I
don't know about that language though. Well see now you
have to make it weird. I'm just saying nobody wants
to be called a complimentary piece. That's what co stars saw.
She was a good co star in I think to
me she was the only real standout that I remember
from that horrible James Bond movie. Yes, that's great. It
(09:10):
was a fun scene.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
And the thing about Ballerina is that, even if you
don't think she's much of an actress, they just keep
the violence so constant, so relentless, and so well choreographed
and just insane. You don't care. Who's I have a
problem here, Mark, This is for me. If you think
about it as a movie of quality, no, it sucks.
But as far as just fun stylized violence, if that's
(09:32):
all you're going in for, you're you're gonna get what
you paid for. But I understand what you're saying, Mark.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
I my hang up with movies, especially Once, which feature
a lot of martial arts action. I am hyper critical
of a lot of scenes where you can see Okay,
that's the stunt guy who's never taken martial arts before.
There's just certain things, or you can see that's an
actor who has barely thrown a real kick in their life.
There are just certain things that you can see, Like
(09:57):
when you watch movie like White Men Can't Jump, you
could tell who actually played basketball before and who didn't.
You could tell that Wesley Knips was not a basketball player.
They're just things that you could look for and discern
when it comes to these movies. My thing is I
want the martial arts aspect of the choreography to be tight.
(10:18):
And yes, there are physical limitations, but you can also
craft the scene and I haven't seen the movie, but
you can craft the choreography to make it more believable.
When you have this one hundred and twenty five pound
woman taking on these two hundred and forty pound dunes
and she.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
Looks like she can take and give a kick, and
god knows how much balsa wood stuff they destroyed throwing
her through it right in the movie. And that's fine,
but I just I wish they'd spent some more time
giving her even trace elements of character. And that's a
pretty thorough review. There Mark Ronald, I'm exhausted, I gotta
lie down.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
KFI AM six forty
You're listening to Later with Mo Kelly on demand from
KFI A M six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mark talks about pontificates, pop culture, ron and Report with
Mark Ronner.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
K if I am six forty, it's Later with Mo Kelly.
Let's get to Mark Runner and the Runner Report.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
All right. We never got a chance to talk about
Ballerina last week. There was something going on. I can't
remember what it was, so we're gonna play some catch up.
The full title is from the World of john Wick Ballerina,
which is kind of a mouthful. We've had four John
Wick movies with Keanu Reeves, all entertaining and fun, especially
if you're a violent sociopath. We had a spin off
(00:54):
TV show called The Continental, which didn't do a lot
for me. I think I dropped it after an episode
or two. Now we've got to spin off movie be
with a female lead. Ballerina with an adarmis. Sorry, it's
from the World of john Wick Ballerina. Do we need this?
Here's a little bit of the trailer.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I know you, I know your pain.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
This isn't done until they're dead. We do not swear
to this, Senias. When you think of me, you should
think of five those people that you're looking for. I'm
(01:39):
in this hotel right now. Reason from the ashes, you
don't choose to be a killer.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
You are chosen.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
That's right, You are chosen. And you could hear some
of the mayhem in there, but the mayhem's pretty impressive.
I am agnostic on a de Armis as an act
heroin and an action star, and even as an actress.
Her Marilyn Monroe movie Blonde left me cold. I don't
even think she shook her Cuban accent for that. The
year before that, in twenty twenty one, she had a
(02:11):
small role in the embarrassingly bad James Bond movie No
Time to Die, and she seemed able to do some
action in that. Here's where we got to digress and
aggress the elephant in the room and risk pissing some
people off. Female action movies and shows are tricky to
pull off, and it's rare when you see one that
actually sells the fights with a woman star, especially against men.
Remember Haywire with Gina Carano from twenty eleven, or pretty
(02:35):
much anything with Michelle Yo when she was younger. Good
female fight action, Atomic Blonde with Charlie's Terren wasn't bad either,
and we could go down the list because I try
to watch most of them, peppermint Ava, the Woman King,
those weren't quite as good. The pragmatic aspect is this
last I look this stuff up. Women have an average
twenty five to forty percent less strength than men and
a generally higher percentage of body fat. Don't blame me.
(02:58):
There are always exceptions, but we're just not the same.
If you think taking note of that is sexist, your
argument's not with me. It's with biology, evolution, Galactus, the
great god Cthulhu. I don't make the rules, but I
dealt with the physical differences myself a lot during the
time I taught taekwondo when I was younger. Yes, women
against men were generally a mismatch. But on the other hand,
(03:20):
and Mo, you might relate to this, the female students
were always the first ones to hurt me during sparring
and haul off and kick me without hesitation in the balls.
That's true. Okay, that's accurate. Thank you for that. And
that's where Ballerina is smart right out of the gate
by addressing that little five foot six on a dyarmis
plays a woman who when she's tiny, her father gets
(03:41):
killed by bad guys. Then she's taken in and trained
by a ballet assassin group you know those. It's led
by Angelica Houston from the Wick Verse movies The Wick World,
And during all the training she's told directly, you're not
going to beat men fighting on their own terms. You
gotta fight dirty, fight creatively, fight like a girl. And
the results are pretty entertaining. They're hyper choreographed, but they're fun.
(04:05):
These wik movies, I think, do what Bruce lees Entered
the Dragon did in nineteen seventy one and what Jet
Lee's Kiss of the Dragon did in two thousand and one,
and surprisingly few others have really bothered with, which is,
they give hyper violent martial arts fights all the lavish
production value of a real, big Hollywood movie. Ballerina is
a terrific looking movie, with real actors, great sets and locations,
(04:27):
a cool score. The last act takes place in a
little European mountain village entirely populated by bad guys, and
it looks terrific. Old Gabriel Byrne is back on film.
He's the leader of the bad guys. Norman Ritus from
The Walking deads in it, but not as much as
the trailers might lead you to believe. Keanu Reeves appears
his Wick and it's more than just a cameo, so
(04:47):
you can forget about the class action suit on that
front if you care. Ballerina is set between John Wick.
Chapters three and four. Ian McShane and Lance Reddick are
back from the Wick movies. Rehdick died in twenty twenty three,
and his scenes in Ballerino were apparently the last things
he ever filmed, So if you're skeptical Ballerina might not
deliver on the action, I'm here to tell you it's
(05:08):
packed with relentless psychotic violence, fists, knives, compound fractures, face shots,
the same kind of gun foo from the Wick movies,
and not just gunfu. As Anna's character Eve breaks the
rules of the wickworld to get revenge for her dad
in places that are off limits, we get ice skate foo,
we get flamethrower foo, we get some hand grenade foo.
(05:31):
It does get pretty Warner Brothers. Let's be clear, it's
all pretty dumb. I mean, Wick still has his bulletproof suits,
so you know you're not watching the French connection here.
And the story to the extent that one even exists,
is just a delivery device for a bunch of action
set pieces. It only has a fraction of the character
of the Wick movies, and poor old Gabriel Burns reduced
to that cliche of the boss who keeps sending henchmen
(05:54):
after an unstoppable killing machine. Bring her to me, kill her.
We've seen it a million times. I don't even know
why they bothered putting Norman Ritas in it either. He's
barely in the movie. This may be indicative of a
troubled production. You may have read that Ballerin was pushed
back a whole year, had a bunch of reshoots, was
taken over by Chad Stahelski, the director of some of
the Whig stuff. The uh, we'll never know the truth,
(06:16):
because it's not like the filmmakers are going to come
out and spill the beans in interviews. Every big movie
has reshoots from Marvel on down, and it doesn't matter.
What's on the screen matters. And what's on the screen
is honestly some fun trash. It's nice looking, got plenty
of creative violence, but there's nothing memorable about it. It's
not a very good movie. It's poorly written and barely written.
(06:36):
What winds up being weird is that Anna Diarmis can
sell the action, but she just doesn't have the charisma
to make you care much about her. I like Keanu Reeves,
but he has what you might call a limited range,
and he still blows her off the screen whenever they're
in a scene together. I wanted to leave her behind
and go with him. I went in agnostic about her
(06:57):
and came out the same way. She's no Pam Grero Okay.
I feel like there's terminology for something that's kind of
fun for a couple hours of pounding, but forgettable and
even kind of cheap when you look back and think
about it. And I feel like Tuala might know what
that word is. Maybe it'll come to me. I don't
need a sequel to Ballerina, but I'll probably watch it
(07:17):
if they make one, because, like I said, I try
to watch most of them. We have you seen this yet?
Speaker 3 (07:22):
I have not, But I do have a question, and
I think you answered it as to whether Honor to
Amis is an actual star in her own right or
is she a good co star In movies you.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Can't really predict or explain how an actor strikes everybody.
There might be some people who think she's the greatest
actress on earth. I don't like I said the Blonde movie,
which a lot of people were raving about, I didn't understand.
I didn't. I mean, I feel like she gave a
lot to that performance, and it was a pretty explicit thing.
(07:57):
But if you can't even shake your accent to try
to sound like Marilyn Monroe, you got to you gotta
let me in on what you're going for here, because
it's intentional. Uh. I think we take Keanu Reeves for granted.
I mean he's Yeah, I love Steve McQueen, but he
had his limitations too. You had to put him in
the right thing.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
But yeah, I mean Keanu Reeves, he's not It's not
that he has a lack of range. I think he
accentuates that, which he does very well. We're not looking
for a biopic with Keanu Reeves. We're not looking for
a period piece by a large with Keanu Reeves.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Didn't need him in Shakespeare, not at all.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
But he works very well in this hyperbolic action genre
that he dominates. And maybe Hona de Armas has not
found that vehicle for her yet the things I've seen
her in I thought she was fine as a complimentary piece.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
But I don't know if I want to wait, I
don't know about that language though. Well see now you
have to make it weird. I'm just saying nobody wants
to be called a complimentary piece. That's what co stars saw.
She was a good co star in I think to
me she was the only real standout that I remember
from that horrible James Bond movie. Yes, that's great. It
(09:10):
was a fun scene.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
And the thing about Ballerina is that, even if you
don't think she's much of an actress, they just keep
the violence so constant, so relentless, and so well choreographed
and just insane. You don't care. Who's I have a
problem here, Mark, This is for me. If you think
about it as a movie of quality, no, it sucks.
But as far as just fun stylized violence, if that's
(09:32):
all you're going in for, you're you're gonna get what
you paid for. But I understand what you're saying, Mark.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
I my hang up with movies, especially Once, which feature
a lot of martial arts action. I am hyper critical
of a lot of scenes where you can see Okay,
that's the stunt guy who's never taken martial arts before.
There's just certain things, or you can see that's an
actor who has barely thrown a real kick in their life.
There are just certain things that you can see, Like
(09:57):
when you watch movie like White Men Can't Jump, you
could tell who actually played basketball before and who didn't.
You could tell that Wesley Knips was not a basketball player.
They're just things that you could look for and discern
when it comes to these movies. My thing is I
want the martial arts aspect of the choreography to be tight.
(10:18):
And yes, there are physical limitations, but you can also
craft the scene and I haven't seen the movie, but
you can craft the choreography to make it more believable.
When you have this one hundred and twenty five pound
woman taking on these two hundred and forty pound dunes
and she.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
Looks like she can take and give a kick, and
god knows how much balsa wood stuff they destroyed throwing
her through it right in the movie. And that's fine,
but I just I wish they'd spent some more time
giving her even trace elements of character. And that's a
pretty thorough review. There Mark Ronald, I'm exhausted, I gotta
lie down.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
KFI AM six forty
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