Film Review – Ballerina

June 8th, 2025 | POSTED BY Allen Almachar

Advertisements have gone to great lengths to let us know that Ballerina (2025) is a spinoff of the highly successful John Wick franchise. The marketing makes it painfully clear that the “Baba Yaga” himself, John Wick (Keanu Reeves) makes an appearance. Hell, even the title was marketed as “From the World of John Wick: Ballerina.” While making that connection is obvious from a financial standpoint, it does undermine the identity of the film as a singular entity. There are so many familiar sights, sounds, people, and places that this doesn’t get much of an opportunity to tell its own story. The action is excellent – as is the standard for the entire franchise – but when it tries to delve into the drama or character development, that’s where things get a little disjointed.

Perhaps the reason for that fragmentation is due to the troubled production. Rumors state that after director Len Wiseman’s initial cut was rejected, longtime John Wick helmer Chad Stahelski came in for extensive reshoots, including several action scenes. The result is a high-octane extravaganza, with all the shootouts, punches, kicks, and explosions you could ask for. But it feels episodic, as though the editing team had all this material and tried its best to piece it together in some cohesive manner. We see this the most when Wick shows up. Despite what posters and trailers would have us think, Keanu Reeves is only in the movie for a few minutes. His appearances are shoehorned, stopping the narrative flow dead in its tracks. Don’t get me wrong, I love Reeves in this role. But this isn’t his story, and the production had trouble fitting him where he didn’t really belong.

Our protagonist is Eve (Ana de Armas) who, much like Wick, has become a deadly assassin. As a child, Eve lost her father at the hands of a cult – led by a man named The Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne). Soon after, she joined the shadowy organization known as the “Ruska Roma.” Under the tutelage of The Director (Angelica Huston), Eve spent her youth training to be both a ballerina and a killer. Revenge has long been on her mind, and when Eve finds the opportunity to track down the cult and The Chancellor, she goes against the orders of The Director and takes matters into her own hands. Along the way, Eve runs across some familiar friends, such as Winston (Ian McShane) and Charon (the late Lance Reddick). The famed Continental Hotel in New York, which is supposed to be a neutral zone for assassins but always manages to attract violence, also makes a brief appearance.

The writing (Shay Hatten) doesn’t bother to add complexity to Eve’s character. Her motivation is simple: hurt the people that hurt her. There’s a bit about Eve “making the choice” between being an assassin or walking away to live a normal life. That theme doesn’t amount to much since, if she did decide to walk away, we wouldn’t have a movie. One nice detail is how the narrative shows Eve’s growth. Unlike John Wick, who is introduced as a boogeyman with a near mythological aura, Eve is a novice. She is an underdog, who makes mistake after mistake in her training. Montages depict her stumbling continuously but always learning. Day after day, she takes one step further, getting better, getting stronger. This continues when she goes out in the field for real missions. She takes a beating from adversaries early on but pushes through using her wits. It’s refreshing to see a character not be the best at what they do straight out of the gate but gets to that point from hard work and dedication.

Obviously, the big attraction here is the action and stunt work, and Ballerina more than holds its own. In fact, it could be argued that there are too many action scenes. Ana de Armas meets the physical demands of the role, jumping headfirst into the mayhem with full commitment. Although the choreography doesn’t have the same jiujitsu/grappling style of the previous films, it still incorporates the point-blank gunplay and brutal hand to hand combat. There are many highlights to point out, but I’ll mention two. One takes place in a kitchen, where Eve must use all sorts of plates, knives, pans, and other props to thwart enemies. There’s a kind of slapstick element to the scene. I got a chuckle when characters, trying to find a gun hidden underneath a pile of plates, smack each other with them as they look for it. The other is a shootout Eve has while wielding a flame thrower. I’ve seen plenty of flame throwers in movies before, but none used quite this way. Eve and her opponent duck, dodge, and dive to avoid getting engulfed in flames. The sudden bursts of fire light up the room in jaw dropping fashion, with the sound design pumped up to the max. 

One of the defining traits of the John Wick franchise is the world building. Through past installments, we learned how the network of assassins operated: From contracts, safe zones, currency, how weapons are procured, how good deeds are rewarded, and bad deeds are punished. A key image is of a secret room where receptionists work at switch boards, detailing when contracts are put up and the price of a bounty on someone’s head. Ballerina repeats just about all of this without adding anything new. When Eve visits a shop to pick out weapons as though they were a new pair of pants, we’ve seen that before. When a new contract is announced and all the assassins check their phones for the update, the impact is not as felt because it’s been recycled so often. Sure, for the fifth film of a franchise, trying to expand the world even further is a challenge. But it did seem like there was more to explore here, especially since we are following a new character.

If you come to Ballerina just for the action, then you will get exactly what you paid for. There are several big, splashy sequences to satisfy the most ardent action junky. But if you are looking for something a little deeper or character driven, you may walk away disappointed. Ana de Armas performs the stunt choreography well, but in terms of character development she is not given much to work with. This is a perfectly serviceable picture with very good action. However, I can’t help thinking that this doesn’t quite get to the heights of the franchise it’s spinning off from.

Ana de Armas, Angelica Huston, Ballerina, Chad Stahelski, Featured, Gabriel Byrne, Ian Mcshane, John Wick, Keanu Reeves, Lance Reddick, Len Wiseman, Shay Hatten