{"id":356135,"date":"2026-03-24T21:01:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T21:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/356135\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T21:01:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T21:01:11","slug":"ballet-action-comedy-is-just-cartoonish-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/356135\/","title":{"rendered":"Ballet action-comedy is just cartoonish enough"},"content":{"rendered":"

The makers of the loopy ballet-themed action-comedy Pretty Lethal have a propensity for over-the-top melodrama, which enhances their movie when it finally kicks into a higher gear. That doesn\u2019t happen until the first big action scene, a delirious group melee that pits five young American ballet students against a gang of heavily accented Hungarian thugs. Until then, it\u2019s hard to tell what tone the filmmakers are aiming for, mostly because of how much time and attention they waste on caricaturing their Hungarian antagonists, led by a delightfully vampish Uma Thurman<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pretty Lethal doesn\u2019t even fully take flight once it finally escapes the realm of good taste, though it does feature a handful of standout moments and images. You might scratch your head a few times, but you also may enjoy yourself if you only want the filmmakers to embrace their unhinged high-concept premise: Can a troupe of squabbling ballerinas escape a nest of violent kidnappers and reach their high-stakes dance competition on time?<\/p>\n

The filmmakers in question, led by director Vicky Jewson (of the surprisingly strong 2019 Noomi Rapace action vehicle Close<\/a>) and screenwriter Kate Freund, don\u2019t always seem to be on the same page, though their movie\u2019s opening voiceover does set the stage for the cracked highlights that follow. Bones (Maddie Ziegler), the talented and ferocious leader of the pack, speaks for her fellow ballerinas when she tells us that, \u201cInside every ballerina\u2019s heart beats the blood of a warrior.\u201d She adds that ballet dancers, \u201cturn pain into beauty, chaos into precision, their bodies into art.\u201d A portentous remix of Snap!\u2019s \u201cRhythm Is A Dancer\u201d backs up Ziegler\u2019s spiel on the soundtrack.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bones doesn\u2019t really get along with the other girls, especially not her pampered, scheming rival Princess (Lana Condor). \u201cBallet is a rich bitch sport,\u201d she hisses at her protective mentor\/coach Miss Thorna (Lydia Leonard). Then again, Bones\u2019 comrades don\u2019t all seem refined or prim, though the sheltered and prissy young dancer Grace (Avantika) does get singled out because of her inexplicable squeamishness (for some reason she can\u2019t stand the sight of gambling). Overprotective Zoe (Iris Apatow) and her deaf sister Chloe (Millicent Simmonds) mostly stick to themselves, though Chloe\u2019s hormones do put her in danger when she takes an interest in Hungarian bad boy Artyom (Kriszti\u00e1n Cs\u00e1kv\u00e1ri).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bones\u2019 group eventually puts their differences aside and bands together some time after their bus to Budapest breaks down and they seek refuge in the sketchy Teremok Inn, whose nightclub aesthetic resembles the champagne room at Castle Dracula. Devora (Thurman), the Inn\u2019s stern proprietor and Artyom\u2019s mom, mostly lets her grubby employees and regulars speak for her establishment, particularly her lackey Osip (Mikl\u00f3s B\u00e9res) and the spoiled gangster Pasha (Tam\u00e1s Szab\u00f3 Sipos), son of the infamous local mobster Lothar (Michael Culkin). These guys shoot, threaten, and, in one scene, literally wring their hands with glee at the thought of hurting Bones\u2019 seemingly vulnerable company. Sometimes the sheer extremity of these characterizations makes it seem as if the filmmakers are at war with their own playful premise, like when Osip tries to drug one of Bones\u2019 friends and she hallucinates that her attacker has cartoonishly demonic features.<\/p>\n

But Pretty Lethal takes a hard turn after Bones urges her fellow dancers to stop panicking like scared children and start thinking like highly-disciplined athletes. At this point, the filmmakers struggle valiantly to embrace their movie\u2019s nature as an action showcase for leotard-wearing dancers. The highlights are mostly high enough, as when Devora takes center stage and reminds us that Thurman can steal a scene with a silly accent and a bug-eyed Norma Desmond glare.<\/p>\n

Pretty Lethal\u2018s go-for-broke back half can only do so much to cast its relatively disjointed opening scenes in a gentler light. Ghoulish and confrontationally gross establishing moments featuring Osip and his pals seem like holdovers from a mid-1980s Cannon production rather than a glitzy action romp. It\u2019s also hard to sympathize with Bones\u2019 friends given their one-note personalities, especially given their pouty and mostly unfunny dialogue.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet it\u2019s harder still to fully dislike an odd crowd-pleaser like Pretty Lethal, which, despite that early flailing, delivers on its undemanding promise. Never mind questions about character development or tonal coherence: What matters here is how hard the filmmakers commit to their admittedly thin bit. The small risks they take throughout the last half hour or so transforms even the defining quirks of annoying characters like Princess and Grace into effective set-ups for more high-strung action.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Condor and Avantika\u2019s unlovable characters may never develop into effective foils for Ziegler\u2019s lead, and their dedication to ballet is ultimately never more than a pretext for more action, but if you adjust your expectations, Pretty Lethal\u2018s ballerinas might deliver enough quirky, cheap thrills to keep you satisfied.<\/p>\n

Director: Vicky Jewson
Writer: Kate Freund
Starring: Iris Apatow, Lana Condor, Millicent Simmonds, Avantika, Maddie Ziegler, Uma Thurman
Release Date: March 25, 2026 (Prime Video)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The makers of the loopy ballet-themed action-comedy Pretty Lethal have a propensity for over-the-top melodrama, which enhances their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[146,85,46,397],"class_list":["post-356135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}