Review: 'Ballerina' starts wobbly but finds its form

Paramount Pictures, 2025.

When it comes to myth-making in modern cinema, no character in the past decade rivals the legend of John Wick. Across four films, Wick (Keanu Reeves) has racked up a body count that challenges the highest in cinematic history. With action sequences and production values that have set a new standard for the genre, the John Wick series has become the benchmark other action films aspire to reach.

Branching off from this success comes "Ballerina" (technically titled "From the World of John Wick: Ballerina"), featuring a character that Wick crossed paths with back in "John Wick: Chapter Three - Parabellum." Eve (Ana de Armas) is more than just a female version of John Wick, and while "Ballerina" stumbles out of the gate, it eventually finds its footing and earns its place in the John Wick cinematic universe.

Grade: B

Eve is avenging the death of her father, who was killed in front of her when she was a child. The Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne) is the film's primary antagonist and the man responsible. He leads a powerful faction of assassins, who occupy a unique town in the Austrian mountainside.

Eve is spared, but grows up with vengeance on her mind. She is brought into the Ruska Roma ballet academy, under the guidance of The Director (Anjelica Huston), the same figure who once trained John Wick.

Ballerina's journey brings her across familiar faces in the franchise, including Winston (Ian McShane) and The Continental's front desk worker, Charon, played by the late Lance Reddick, in this, his final on-screen role. It also brings her face-to-face with John Wick himself, with Reeves reprising his role and bridging this movie to the flagship series (in case you are wondering, "Ballerina" takes place between the events of Part 3 and Part 4 of the John Wick franchise).

To say that the film gets off to a rough start would be an understatement. It feels rushed, poorly-acted and plotted and worst of all, uninteresting. We expect a lot from this franchise and expectations are quite high. For the first hour, "Ballerina" felt like a studio cash grab...a feeble attempt to spin-off the franchise's success. It starts to feel like a dime-a-dozen revenge movie...but then, "Ballerina" finds its groove.

We've been conditioned to see all of the bloodshed and mayhem unfold on-screen, but one particular scene finds Eve at the end of a brutal battle, not the beginning. As she makes her way down the elevator and to her car, we see her reclaim her knives and various weapons used in the melee. It was a clever inversion of what we've grown accustomed to, and it ends with a bang...literally.

From there, the film seems to remember that this universe is supposed to be fun. There is a tongue-in-cheek spirit that drew us in from the very start, when the death of a dog unleashed the greatest killer in cinematic history. Eve soon finds herself battling others with a pair of ice-skates, getting attacked by an entire town of assassins and having the most epic flame-thrower battle the movies have ever seen. By the time she counters her flame-throwing foe with a fire hose, the film has more than earned its campy tone. In other words, it knows that its a John Wick film, and it knows that we know it's a John Wick film...so let's just roll with that and have some fun.

The action and interaction becomes non-stop entertainment, worthy of any of the other John Wick films. They end up using the audience's expectations to create real thrills and surprises. Refreshingly, Eve is not meant to be just Jane Wick, but she is developed as a unique character with a different set of skills and shortcomings. And Wick himself is used in a way that is true to the character, where he also doesn't overstay his welcome.

 I really wanted to dislike "Ballerina" after that disjointed start, but by the end, it had me on my toes.

Grade: B

Genre: Action, Thriller.
Run Time: 2 hours 5 minutes.
Rated R.

Starring: Ana de Armas, Gabriel Byrne, Ian McShane, Anjelica Huston, Keanu Reeves, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Lance Reddick.

Directed by Len Wiseman ("Total Recall" - 2012 version, "Underworld").

"From the World of John Wick: Ballerina" is in theaters everywhere on Friday, June 6th, 2025.