BALLERINA (2025) - Mark Reviews Movies

Ballerina, Lionsgate

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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 5, 2025

Back in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum and when the series was starting to feel a bit repetitive and caught up too much in its underworld mythology, the tribe of the Ruska Roma was introduced. Based in a New York City theater and training people in both ballet and combat, the group served as one of those strange additions to the world of these films, but now, they're the foundation of the spin-off installment Ballerina, which follows a different assassin on yet another mission for vengeance and suggests we might have the possibility of an entire spin-off series in the future.

To be sure, the films starring Keanu Reeves' John Wick were worthwhile, if only for the action—as the plot of each successive entry felt increasingly familiar and like a lot of wheel-spinning. This new installment attempts to replicate the base appeal of its predecessors by, well, doing exactly the same things but putting a new face in the foreground.

That the face belongs Ana de Armas is especially pleasant, and that the actress shows a lot of skill in performing the assorted fights and stunts put forth by director Len Wiseman (new to the series) is even better. We know she must have done a lot of the work here, if only because the credits tell us de Aramas had both a physician and a chiropractor on set. One imagines all of those kicks, rolls, and spins must be a killer on the lower back—not to mention everywhere else.

De Armas plays Eve, whose brought to the Ruska Roma tribe as a child, after her father is killed trying to protect her from a cooly ruthless cult leader known only as the Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne). Connecting this to even further to the adventures of John is that his long-time ally Winston (Ian McShane), the manager of the assassin haven of a hotel the Continental, brings young Eve to the theater for her training, which is overseen by the Director (Anjelica Huston), who has trained many a talented killer, including John himself.

Speaking of John, he makes an amusing cameo early on into Eve's story, which comes across as a nice passing of the baton to our new protagonist, while everyone tries to decide if it's worth bringing John back for yet another of his own sequels. That's not enough, though, and apparently, John has enough time on his hands in the middle of his own adventures to show up for the climactic showdown. In theory, that sequence happens during or just after the events of his third film, and if memory serves, he had been and would continue to be pretty busy hopping the globe and stylishly killing people through most of the sequels.

We don't need John to support Eve, who gets a lengthy prologue showing her tragic back story, her entry into the Ruska Roma, and several scenes and at least one montage of her training to become a professional protector of the innocent. That, as it turns out, is the role this tribe plays, and when Eve finally receives her first mission, there's a subversive little twist on expectations when the Director hands her a gun with rubber bullets. This series has desensitized us so much to gunplay and brutal deaths that the notion of a less-lethal alternative in this world feels almost revolutionary.

Anyway, the plot kicks in eventually, and soon enough, Eve is using guns with more traditional bullets, unloading them into countless thugs whom she doesn't explode with grenades, and throws several sharp objects into the skulls of foes. The violence isn't necessarily the issue here, because, again, this series has shown us bloodshed as gruesome as that on display here and, likely, worse.

No, it's just that the movie doesn't do enough that's either different or more imaginative than anything we've already seen from this franchise. Eve is nothing more than a stand-in for John, albeit with a lot less experience and a dead father instead of a dead dog, and the filmmakers don't even trust that the obvious trade-off is enough. Hence, John does appear during the climax, trying to stop Eve from starting a war between the Ruska Roma and the Chancellor's cult before, of course, getting in on the action himself. Why do the filmmakers go through the trouble of establishing Eve when she can't even exist as the sole hero of her own story?

To be fairer to the movie, it's no more routine in terms of the plot than any of the mainline films in this series. This entry may be copying a lot of what its predecessors did, but aping the style and method of some of the most inventive movie action in recent memory isn't necessarily a bad decision. There are bursts of inspiration here—from a couple of characters dueling with flamethrowers, to some slapstick bits (such as Eve and an opponent breaking plates to find a gun buried beneath a pile of them), to the almost-screwball revelation of how entrenched the Chancellor's cult is in a certain location.

They're simply not enough, though, to make Ballerina or its protagonist stand apart from what has already come before them. Yes, that includes how this installment ultimately promises at least one more sequel to, based on the setup, keep doing even more of the same.

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