Ballerina – From the World of John Wick (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)

Ballerina - From the World of John Wick

BALLERINA: FROM THE WORLD OF JOHN WICK (2025)

Starring Ana de Armas, Anjelica Huston, Gabriel Byrne, Lance Reddick, Norman Reedus, Ian McShane, Keanu Reeves, Victoria Comte,  Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Choi Soo-young, Catalina Sandino Moreno, David Castañeda, Robert Maaser, Doohong Jung, Anne Parillaud, Marc Cram, Rila Fukushima, Abraham Popoola, Magdalena Šittová and Waris Ahluwalia.

Screenplay by  Shay Hatten.

Directed by Len Wiseman.

Distributed by Lionsgate. 125 minutes. Rated R.

I have a confession to make. Before this week I had never once visited “the world of John Wick.” I’m not sure that I actively avoided the four previous John Wick films, but I never really was all that interested either, despite the fact that I am a huge fan of Keanu Reeves and several other actors in the series.

I finally got around to watching John Wick: Chapter Three – Parabellum the other day because I had this screening coming up and this film was supposed to be a continuation of that particular story. And honestly, I just barely got through it. Not that it wasn’t very well made, but eventually I just got completely bored by the wall-to-wall violent mayhem.

John Wick executed literally hundreds of professional killers – mostly by himself, but occasionally with the help of Halle Berry and some dogs – in the film. And the only real major injury that Wick endured was something he did to himself, to prove his fealty to the shadowy crime syndicate to which he belonged. (The slightly redundant pledge that was often required of him and others was, "I have served. I will be of service.")

I know this leaves me in the minority, but I can’t stand action films in which the lead character is impervious to pain and death and can take on armies of bad guys (only one or two at a time, of course) and pretty much single-handedly leave a trail of fallen enemies behind him.

If someone can’t be killed, why should I care about his fight? I know he’s going to win, so what is the point in my sitting through this? There’s only so many times you can sit through head shots and impaling before it becomes same old, same old.

Although John Wick shows up periodically as a character in this new spin-off film, Ballerina is the story Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas), a ballerina who has also been trained to be an assassin by the same shadowy organization that created Wick. (The ballerina character was played by real-life dancer Unity Phelan in John Wick III.)

Yet, despite the graceful, arty title, this is pretty much more of the same – grand guignol brutality on a near operatic level performed in some admittedly stunningly beautiful locations. The only differences are that Eve is younger, a woman, and quite beautiful. And she tends to use grenades and flamethrowers more than John Wick seemed to in his film (at least the one I saw) – for whatever that’s worth. She also uses quite a few common household items as instruments of death – china plates, ice skates, TV remote controls, etc. – which is also a trick she seems to have learned from Wick.

My biggest issue with Ballerina though is simply the concept behind it. In a preface at the beginning of the film, we see young Eve witnessing her father being murdered. She vows revenge. Years later when she has grown up and has been taught the abilities to avenge her father, she kills literally hundreds of people in order to “right the wrong” that was done to her.

You know, at least some of those people she slaughtered – maybe even most of them – had children of their own. So how is Eve any better than the men who killed her dad? She may even be somewhat worse when you consider the sheer volume of kids’ parents who she executed in her little mission of self-discovery.

Is it going to help her father? Nope, he’s still dead. Is it even going to help her? Not really seeming like it; she is in worse shape and more hunted than ever at the end of Ballerina. And she does not really seem to have gotten any closure.

Even when she finally faces off against the man who was directly responsible for her dad’s death – I won’t tell you what happens for spoilers’ sake, but come on, you know as well as I do – it seems kind of anticlimactic. We were pummeled by over two hours of nearly constant mayhem for this meek ending?

Look, I’m not totally out of touch, I get that there is an audience for this kind of film. After all, this is the fifth John Wick film, with more to come, so someone has to want to see them. Hell, at the screening I saw, people were hooting and hollering over some of the most horrific killings imaginable. So, if this stuff works for you, more power to you; enjoy it. However, I find it hard to believe I’ll have the urge to return to the world of John Wick anytime soon.

Jay S. Jacobs

Copyright ©2025 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: June 5, 2025.