From the World of John Wick: Ballerina

There’s a moment—just one, really—where Ballerina pirouettes into something genuinely promising. About midway through its 125-minute runtime, the film flirts with evolution. A brisk 20-minute stretch lunges beyond mere mimicry of the John Wick ethos, offering up tantalizing new riffs on familiar symphonic violence.

Unfortunately, it’s a fleeting flirtation. The rest of the film retreats into mimicry, a wan reflection of its source rather than a bold expansion of it. Ballerina is not without merit, but it is mired in contradiction: a movie that postures about forging a new path, while never removing its boots from Wick’s well-trodden ground.

Ana de Armas stars as Eve, a haunted assassin whose ballet training—though emphasized in name and poster—remains a largely ornamental element, never once integrated into the character's combat style or emotional rhythm. It’s a curious decision, and emblematic of the film’s core dissonance: what it says it wants to be versus what it actually is. Where John Wick films deploy action to reflect inner struggle, Ballerina too often uses it as punctuation in a screenplay that never finishes its sentence.

Eve’s backstory is boilerplate grief-stained vengeance, doled out in flashbacks that feature Victoria Comte as her younger self, witnessing the murder of her father by a cult helmed by the shadowy Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne, who somehow underplays even his most theatrical line deliveries). As with everything in Ballerina, the setup is familiar. A daughter orphaned, a criminal cabal marked for death. It’s the stuff of a thousand other revenge tales, and the script does depressingly little to distinguish it.

What follows is Eve’s decade-long metamorphosis under the tutelage of the Director (Anjelica Huston, reprising her stoic role), with lessons delivered by the steely Nogi (Sharon Duncan-Brewster). But the promised metamorphosis is illusory. By the time Eve’s ballet-to-bloodshed training is complete, she remains a cypher—driven, yes, but without a distinct identity beyond what she’s inherited from John Wick’s archetype. She shoots, she stabs, she somersaults. But her motions, while stylish, feel empty, robbed of character specificity.

The film’s stunt work, courtesy of Wick regulars, maintains an admirable physicality. A grenade-fu skirmish, a remote-control brawl punctuated by well-timed channel flips, and a vicious ice rink showdown (yes, that’s a thing) exhibit flashes of inspired absurdity. You can spot Chad Stahelski’s influence in these pockets of creativity. But they exist in a vacuum, disconnected from any thematic thrust or narrative escalation. Even the film’s vibrant nightclub brawl, lit in obligatory blues and pinks, plays like a remix of Wick’s greatest hits—with none of the emotional bass.

Then there’s the Wick of it all. Keanu Reeves appears, predictably, in what amounts to a glorified cameo, slotted into the timeline between Parabellum and Chapter 4. His inclusion is both forced and unnecessary, a reminder that Ballerina exists primarily as franchise connective tissue. Reeves’ presence should elevate, but instead it dilutes. His scenes interrupt rather than enrich, turning Eve’s revenge into someone else’s detour.

Ultimately, Ballerina is a film of gestures. It gestures at pathos. It gestures at innovation. It gestures at femininity as strength. But each gesture lacks follow-through. De Armas deserves better—her physical prowess is undeniable, but her character is undercooked. The result? A movie that pirouettes around purpose, balletically violent but narratively inert. It's a derivative exercise in franchise maintenance, never quite sure whether it’s tribute, spin-off, or straight-up duplication. Whatever it is, it’s no ballet worth returning to.

2/5