“Ballerina” (2025), also known as “From the World of John Wick: Ballerina,” or commonly described as “John Wick 3.5” because the story takes place in between “John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum” (2019) and “John Wick: Chapter 4” (2023), is the fifth film in the franchise with John Wick (Keanu Reeves) playing a supporting role to Eve Maccaro’s story. Eve (Ana de Armas) joins the Ruska Roma to gain the necessary skills to avenge her father’s death, but when she disobeys the orders of The Director (Anjelica Huston), will she be able to escape being John Wick’s target long enough to achieve her goal?
After de Armas made a brief, scene stealing appearance in “No Time to Die” (2021), the last movie in the Bond franchise starring Daniel Craig, it is not surprising that she got the lead role in the first spinoff in the “John Wick” franchise. de Armas is as pretty as Gal Gadot but can actually act. Eve is nothing like her Bond character. No sexualizing, all grim business complete with the suit styling. It is her origin story, which functions as an entry point into more of the lore behind the world of the assassins. The Ruska Roma train her to be a ballerina, and if you know how they train, the leap to becoming an assassin inured to pain is not that far. The contrast between the delicate tulle and pinks that adorn a ballerina with the innate brutality of self-flagellation to be worthy of the stage echoes the enjoyment of “Abigail” (2024) or watching the most girly of children become unmasked as a bloodthirsty monster. The Ruska Roma train her to become like a Kikimora, another Eastern European legend name used for atmosphere more than faithfulness to the folklore. Her mythological status is a mirror: if you are bad, she scares you, but if you are innocent, she will protect you. She is supposed to be willing to do anything to protect her charge, and while she is good at her job, she is much better at revenge than holding on to her charge.
Eve is after her father’s murderer, The Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne), and he represents a part of the world on the fringes of polite assassin society. His group keeps kidnapping kids and taking their lethal parents, which “Ballerina” explains in the denouement in the most epically violent way possible. The environment shows how their society functions, and it is bananas. The best part of “John Wick” movies is that the action never stops, and somehow the filmmakers escalate the threat, which starts at peak levels, throughout the movie. The Chancellor’s “cult” is tolerated because their zealot beliefs would lead to war if confronted, which explains why Eve’s personal quest for vengeance endangers their world and forces The Director to send John Wick to rein Eve in. It is a better story than it had to be considering everyone is here for one reason: the showdown between Kikimora and Baba Yaga, aka John Wick.
It is the Sophie’s Choice of the action world. No one is rooting against John Wick, but after watching an entire film in which Eve overcomes infinite obstacles, no one will want to see John Wick dispatch her. “Ballerina” sets up an indomitable problem. If Eve defeats the Baba Yaga, it will not feel credible, but if the Baba Yaga kills her, how can moviegoers continue to love him. It is a tricky tight rope that writer Shay Hatten navigates deftly, and Reeves’ terse and restrained emotion line delivery allows Wick’s saga to continue sympathetically while also proving how fearsome and awesomely terrible he is. The man does not need a coat or appropriate footwear in the snow. A lot of the humor is rooted in Reeves’ affect, minimalist exchanges and nonplussed reaction to carnage. Just the fact that Eve was able to hold her ground and not crap herself establishes her as worthy of taking the helm of the franchise. Fun fact: de Armas and Reeves have been in movies together before: “Knock Knock” (2015) and “Exposed” (2016). It is not shocking that they act well together and are experts at sharing the limelight in service of the story. It is nice to see them have an opportunity to do it at such a high level of exposure and competence whereas their prior two films ranged from dreadful to verging on distasteful but still solid. They are both willing to get down in the acting dirt more than their more polished, successful Hollywood image implies.
Is “Ballerina” a perfect movie? Action wise, yes, but it is not seamless. It was a skosh longer than it needed to be before letting Eve be great, and her first scene shows the destruction in her wake. It is akin to an expanded version of introducing Jon Bernthal’s character in “The Accountant 2” (2025) except expanded and segueing into even more elevated stunt and fight scenes. The rumor is that although Len Wisemen of the “Underworld” franchise is billed as the director, producer Chad Stahelski, who directed the preceding four films, unofficially returned and reshot a lot of scenes to maintain the franchise’s standards. Whoever is responsible, while it did not offer as many long shot, uninterrupted fight sequences as I would like, it is still undeniably the most gorgeous action film franchise.
Story wise, it feels criminal to introduce a character whom Rila Fukushima plays, Petra, and she is just a step on Eve’s journey to self-realization. Maybe the franchise will loop back into her background in the future. If I have a pet peeve, which is not a deal breaker or a cardinal sin, whenever women assassins are the protagonist in movies, writers saddle her with protecting a kid to make her more sympathetic. This storyline slightly detracts from the narrative’s momentum and seemed redundant considering Eve had sufficient motivation to pursue The Chancellor. It also gave the impression that Eve is not great at her job. This issue ties into Petra’s appearance: what transgression does a Kikimora have to commit to end up in that position? Because the consequences of Eve’s completely reasonable lapses in performance seem theoretically high but are nonexistent until the end.
Also, the morality is kind of hilarious in “Ballerina.” Suicide must be stopped at all costs, even at the price of other people’s mental health, but killing scores of people is totally acceptable. When Eve’s father is under fire, not a single bullet hits him until he is completely invisible to the shooters. It may be time to see how regular people live in this universe because how do they explain all the insane stuff going on around them. There is zero law enforcement. I’m curious now because imagine going to your local club and leaving to see the absolute wreckage outside. While the film can be a bit heavy-handed on the girl power element of the story, which I enjoyed, one great lesson is to define your own terms instead of following the status quo where you will definitely get defeated and told that you are inadequate.
“Ballerina” may be a glorified ATM to continue the franchise without enslaving Reeves for the rest of his life, but it does not feel like it. The latest installment proves that the assassin mythology still has plenty of fuel left in the tank, and action lovers will be satiated with all the convincing rough housing. The fight choreography and stunts are astonishing, and it is impressive that any actor without extensive stunt training could execute these movies. Reeves is an action icon for most of his career, so de Armas had big shoes to fill and succeeded. Cannot wait for the inevitable sequel.
