PLOT: A ballet troupe, on the way to a prestigious competition in Budapest, gets stuck in a dive bar when their bus breaks down. After witnessing a murder, they find themselves hunted by the minions of the murderous bar owner, Devora (Uma Thurman), and are forced to band together to survive the night.

REVIEW: Prime Video has become a solid spot for meat-and-potatoes action flicks. Road House, Heads of State, and The Wrecking Crew all did well, and now 87North, the action team behind the Nobody films, Violent Night, and The Fall Guy, has entered the fray with a unique take on the genre. While last year’s Ballerina was the first movie to embrace the notion that the hard, punishing lifestyle of a ballerina could make for a strong action heroine, director Vicky Jewson’s Pretty Lethal is a lot more fun. Moreover, it actually features ballerina choreography as central to the action, with teamwork, flexibility, and physical prowess helping our heroines survive the night.

Running a tight eighty-eight minutes and adopting a light, breezy tone, with lots of dark comedy mixed in, Pretty Lethal is a total blast. The girls in the troupe are deeply dysfunctional but learn—in classic action movie fashion—to work as a team, with the dynamic between Maddie Ziegler’s Bones and Lana Condor’s Princess giving the movie its heart. Bones is a streetwise dancer from the wrong side of the tracks, but the most talented in the troupe, something which rankles the uptight, spoiled Princess, who is used to being the star. The rest of the girls are a bit less developed, but still a lot of fun. The highlight is definitely Mean Girls (the musical) star Avantika as Grace, the religious one who gets dosed with Molly and spends the rest of the movie high. Then there’s Iris Apatow and A Quiet Place star Millicent Simmonds as sisters, although both wind up offscreen for large chunks of the movie, with the focus staying on Ziegler and Condor.

Ziegler, who initially rose to fame as a dancer, makes for an engaging action heroine, with her dominating the action sequences. Jewson, who previously helmed the well-received Naomi Rapace action flick Close, and 87North do a good job making the fights relatively credible and not too silly. The petite ballerinas aren’t throwing hulking men across rooms. Rather, they surprise their opponents with agility and teamwork, with them putting razor blades in their shoes and using high kicks to slice necks. The fact that they are physically overpowered is pivotal, as Ziegler’s character injures her hand when she tries to punch one in the face. As such, you really get invested in their survival, and the dance fight sequences are almost reminiscent of Gymkata—where gymnastics influenced the choreography—but to be sure, this is better designed and a lot less cheesy.

However, one can’t deny there are a few missed opportunities. Uma Thurman is cast against type as the villain, Devora, but it’s a bit of a cheat when perhaps the greatest female action star of her era never really gets to do any fighting, with her just ordering around goons. They also work hard to give her some pathos, but it’s laid on a little too thick at the end, which feels too convenient.

Even still, Pretty Lethal is a blast, and it’s the perfect movie to pop into the streaming queue on a Friday night after a couple of beers. Ziegler and Condor have solid buddy movie chemistry, and Jewson has a good sense of action, with 87North once again delivering a well-honed product. This was better than I expected.

Pretty Lethal

GOOD

7

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It’s time for SXSW! Once again, film fans will be gathering in Austin, Texas, for a week of cool, largely genre-focused movies looking to build a bit of buzz before many of them come out over the next few months. SXSW has steadily been rising in reputation, with it perhaps most famous for being the place where eventual Oscar-winner Everything Everywhere All at Once had its world premiere. This will be JoBlo’s second time covering the fest, as we attended last year, where we caught the world premieres of The Accountant 2, Another Simple Favor, Death of a Unicorn, and more.

SXSW is interesting in that it seems to be a better place for studios to launch crowd-pleasers than a high-end indie market, with last year’s probably best film at the festival, The Rivals of Amziah King, yet unreleased. Yet genre indies do get sold there, with Good Boy having been a pretty big acquisition last year, and it did solid box office when it came out last summer. With that in mind, here are some of the movies we’re most eager to see this year.

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come

Radio Silence returns with a sequel to their survival horror flick, with Samara Weaving reprising her star-making role as a young woman marked for death by a family who wanted to use her as a satanic sacrifice. Fresh off killing her way out of that situation, her character is forced to participate in another “kill or be killed” game by another clan, which includes such genre stalwarts as Elijah Wood, David Cronenberg, and Sarah Michelle Gellar. Plus, Kathryn Newton co-stars as Weaving’s sister, who is forced to join the hunt. The last one was a blast, so here’s hoping the sequel is just as good.

They Will Kill You: 

Oddly, this seems to have the same premise as Ready or Not, in which a young woman (in this case, Zazie Beetz) is hunted by a satanic cult that lives in the high-end hotel she’s just been hired at. Patricia Arquette co-stars. This comes from WB/New Line, who have had a strong run of horror movies as of late, so this might be another crowd-pleaser, although it’s odd that this and Ready or Not 2 are opening so close to each other (they hit theaters only one week apart).

Over Your Dead Body: 

Samara Weaving seems to be the MVP of this year’s SXSW, with her showing up in not one, but two movies. This one pairs her with Jason Segel in a remake of the Norwegian action-comedy-horror flick The Trip. In it, Segel and Weaving play a couple who are each planning to murder the other on a weekend trip to the country, only to join forces against a bigger threat. This has action scenes by 87North and is directed by The Lonely Island’s Jorma Taccone, who also helmed MacGruber.

Pretty Lethal: 

Another 87North production, this one focuses on a troupe of ballerinas forced to rely on years of brutal training to survive a team of armed men. Maude Apatow, Lana Condor, and Uma Thurman star.

Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice: 

Vince Vaughn, James Marsden, and Eiza Gonzalez star in this buddy action movie about two hitmen, the woman they both love, and… a time machine? The trailer for this one looked like a lot of fun, and it’s nice to see Vaughn return to action, having slayed in the now-classic Brawl in Cell Block 99.

Power Ballad: 

One of my favorite directors, John Carney (Sing Street, Once), returns with another music-driven comedy in which Paul Rudd plays a frustrated singer-songwriter whose composition is stolen by a pop star (Nick Jonas). I love Carney, and I love Rudd, so this one is an easy must-see and may well end up as my favorite of the fest (there’s never been a Carney movie I didn’t love).

Hokum: 

Adam Scott stars in this Neon-distributed horror film about an author (played by the great Adam Scott) staying in a hotel in Ireland that might be haunted. Scott is having a much-deserved moment in the spotlight thanks to Severance, so I’m eager to see him stretch. Also, Neon has become a trusted name in horror.

Obsession: 

Curry Barker’s film was a sensation at TIFF’s Midnight Madness, where I (regrettably) missed out on seeing it. I’m looking to remedy that, and Focus is using SXSW as a platform to launch a movie they surely hope will become the next indie horror smash, with it getting a prime summer release date.

Normal: 

Bob Odenkirk makes a welcome return to action in Ben Wheatley’s small-town-set shoot-’em-up. Odenkirk plays a temporary sheriff who discovers the town he’s posted in harbors a deadly secret. I actually caught this one at TIFF (read my review), so this will be a repeat viewing for me — albeit a welcome one. It’s even showing on 35mm film!

I Love Boosters: 

Boots Riley returns with his much-anticipated follow-up to his indie hit Sorry to Bother You. Not much is known about this one, but it stars Keke Palmer and Demi Moore, and is being positioned as a huge release by Neon.

Which movie are you most eager to see? Let us know in the comments!

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