Ballerina

• Marketed as From the World of John Wick: Ballerina
• Directed by Len Wiseman
• June 6, 2025

An assassin takes on an army of killers as she looks to avenge the death of her father.

I went into Ballerina with some hope. Presented as a John Wick spinoff, I expected far crazier than what was presented. Visually it has the appearance of Wick but lacks the pace and excitement. Nothing wrong with being your own thing. The issue is it takes its time in comparison to what it is supposedly a spin-off of. It’s slow and tries to be methodical, rather than densely packed with kinetic action or character development or even drama. It tries to be a little more complex than John Wick, which is fine, but feels overly complex. All the twists and revelations are excessive rather than a surprise.

Worse it engages in moments akin to a Steven Seagal film where characters tell each other how strong or awesome they are rather than showing us in comparison to any John Wick movie. We hear a lot about how amazing Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas) is before she does much of anything. Rather than stepping up to the challenge and showing her strength, it is more about her needing to decide to be awesome. Being tough on the screen without doing anything is not something everybody can do. It can be helped by camera angles and style but is never helped by telling the audience.

Fight scenes are slow. Gun battles aside when she’s in hand-to-hand it’s more careful. Is that the word I’m looking for? That and repetitive unlike the Wick films. I appreciated the aim for style but my adrenaline never got pumping.

Eve talks back and gets angry quite often. John Wick (Keanu Reeves) could do it because he had a reputation that gave him some free reign. Eve is just a nobody who has a lot of attitude for an insignificant entity. A bit of logic is needed. You could draw some head cannon that it is linked to who she turns out to be but then how does everybody but her know?

For me it is not helped by the numerous John Wick characters popping up in this like it is afraid to stand on its own. Not only does the Continental Hotel in New York show but its concierge Charon (Lance Reddick) appears along with Winston Scott (Ian McShane) and John Wick plays a big part too. Enough of a connection was made with the Director (Angelica Huston) as the leader of the Ruska Roma having appeared before.

Or maybe it’s that expanding the world of John Wick with all this additional mythos in a marginally related film makes the unseen parallel world a little less plausible. Assassins and thieves with their own superspy style organizations that go completely unnoticed by the general population becomes harder to believe.

It is not unbelievable that Ana de Armas-as-Eve Macarro could fight and win against someone physically comparable. It is a cliché trope that characters take on someone physically better in the same way and win. No shame in using a gun or another weapon just as long as it is done with style. Eve kicks and tosses enemies and is never slowed up or inconvenienced in her progression forward.

There’s certainly plenty of style in this film. The environment in which each beat takes place is neon drenched or fashion filled. Director Len Wiseman knows how to add ‘cool’ to anything and brings that here with locations and the used color palate. It was just not enough to hold my attention as I thought about its far superior inspiration.

Gabriel Byrne as the Chancellor brings an appreciable menace to his part. Despite being about 75 when the movie came out, he has the ability to still look like he can be dangerous. Which is a shame with him almost wasted in a movie that fails to tread a well-worn path nicely or break new ground in its fictional world.

Very stunning, but with a story that just doesn’t engage, I felt Ballerina was a bit of a waste. An acceptable one off experience, but not for repeat viewing.