BALLERINA (2025) review

written by: Shay Hatten
produced by: Basil Iwanyk, Erica Lee, and Chad Stahelski
directed by: Len wiseman
rated: R (for strong/bloody violence throughout, and language)
runtime: 125 min.
U.S. release date: June 6, 2025

Anyone going into “Ballerina” will know what they’re getting into, or at least there’s a certain anticipation that what they experienced in the four John Wick movies will be carried on to this one. Nevertheless, Lionsgate Films needs to slap “From the World of John Wick” before this movie’s title. They also feel the need, along with producers Chad Stahelski, Basil Iwanyk, and Erica Lee, to expand this franchise in every direction due to its lucrative box office. It seemed like after three sequels, Wick was done. However, Reeves has stated that he’s willing to play the character for as long as possible, and he shows up here since this spinoff occurs between “John Wick 3” and “John Wick 4”.

Written by Shay Hatten, who co-wrote the last two John Wick movies, “Ballerina” offers Ana de Armas her first lead action role. She’s playing someone we’ve often seen in the titular role: a protagonist out for vengeance. As she briefly proved in the last Bond film, “No Time to Die,” she’s more than game for whatever action is needed and fits right into the pace of all the other movies in this franchise. That being said, the movie suffers when the camera isn’t on de Armas, and that’s immediately apparent in its dull and formulaic opening.

“Ballerina” begins with a prologue that introduces us to 10-year-old Eve Macarro (Victoria Comte), a young girl in the care of her adopted father, Javier (David Castañeda), who serves the Ruska Roma as an assassin. Her mother was a member of an unnamed Cult who was killed after Javier ran away with Eve. The Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne) of this mysterious Cult, who are all marked with a scarred X on their wrist, sends a squad of goons to retrieve Eve, and they fail thanks to Javier, who is left fatally wounded.

Eve is found by New York Continental owner Winston (Ian McShane), who brings her to the Ruska Roma, where she’s introduced to concierge Charon (the late Lance Reddick, in a posthumous role) and the Director (a cigar-chomping Angelica Huston) and agrees to join them to avenge Javier’s death. The Director runs a New York-based organization of ballerina assassins trained to do more than just pliés and pirouettes, although there’s quite a bit of blood in those exercises. Eve’s training is overseen by a mentor named Nogi (Sharon Duncan-Brewster) who sharpens her into a living weapon and helps her focus a burning ferocity simmering under the surface.

When we catch up to her 11 years later, Eve is not only ready to dance professionally with the New York City Ballet, but can effortlessly shoot targets in the face, gun-fu style. Of course, we learn of this through the requisite training montages that eventually prove she is now ready to graduate from the Ruska Roma conservatory and take field assignments with a burning ferocity simmering under the surface. Her main goal remains the same: to find the men who killed her father.

It’s during these early days that Eve (Ana de Armas) first meets John Wick (Keanu Reeves), he recommends she abandon her violent path while she can, after she asks him what it will take to be like him. That’s not what she wants to hear. Nogi gives her greater responsibility as Eve’s lethal skills improve, like caring for her first ward, Katla Park (Choi Soo-young), and fulfilling several contracts. Now ready to move on, Eve asks the Director about pursuing the Cult to follow her goal and is told she is forbidden due to the longstanding truce between the Ruska Roma and the Cult.

With help from Charon and Winston, she parts ways with the Ruska Roma and is told of a large bounty on Daniel Pine (Norman Reedus), a Cult enforcer staying at a Continental in Prague. When she arrives in Prague, she learns that Pine has defected from the Cult to protect his young daughter, Ella (Ava McCarthy), from the assassin’s life. He is pursued by Cult members led by Lena (Cataline Sandino Morena), an assassin loyal to the Chancellor, who’s been ordered to collect Ella to maintain Cult order. Seeing herself in Ella, Eve sets out to protect the young girl, ultimately declaring war on the Cult and breaking the truce that’s existed for hundreds of years.

Anyone coming to “Ballerina” looking for anything other than cool action sequences will be disappointed. There are a handful of noteworthy moments throughout the movie, such as a nightclub with an icy subzero aesthetic, but the stakes escalate once she arrives in a lakeside town in Austria called Hallstatt. Unbeknownst to her, the city is entirely populated by Cult members. Everyone there is a trained killer or is training to become one. Eve quickly learns of this the hard way when she enters a tavern and everyone inside and outside targets her. This sequence conveys a good deal of welcome humor due to unexpected pursuers and the choice of weapons Eve utilizes to defend herself. This remote mountain village is where much of the climactic third act takes place and where Eve discovers secrets from her past and runs into the legendary Baba Yaga, while incorporating a plethora of weapons such as grenades, an assortment of guns, swords, figure skates, plates, and flamethrowers.

Indeed, “Ballerina” delivers on the promise of action, and de Armas is more than up to the role’s physical demands. She commits fully, as Wiseman incorporates the same intense choreography that Stahelski has used in the “John Wick” movies, which have changed the stunt industry. The problem with “Ballerina” is a lack of dramatic tension to align with the escalated action. It amounts to following de Armas as she plows through one foe after another or a group of adversaries. While the fighting is entertaining, it also feels audacious and a bit prolonged in parts, which leads to viewer exhaustion after a while.

The movie barely takes a breather because it doesn’t want viewers to ask questions it can’t answer. The biggest question is the origin of this longstanding feud between the Ruska Room and the Cult. How does Eve not get her hair singed by her adversary’s flamethrower? These movies have never grounded themselves in any understandable reality, but it’d at least be nice if they showed a little effort.

Shot nearly three years ago, “Ballerina” has had its share of production hits. Like its protagonist, it has been shot, reworked, and reshot while remaining bruised and battered from excessive weaponry and fiery explosions. They are no doubt figuring out ways to extend the “World of John Wick” beyond this, but hopefully, there will be a stronger focus on storytelling.

RATING: **1/2