Movies

From the World of John Wick: Ballerina, go behind the scenes with Ana de Armas and Keanu Reeves
Featurette: Lionsgate

Ballerina
Directed by Len Wiseman
Rated R
Pirouetted 6 June 2025
#BallerinaMovie

It's been far too long since a movie has been this entertaining from the very first frame to the last.

All About Eve

Referring to Ballerina as a John Wick "spin-off" somehow cheapens it. This is a 100% legitimate addition to the World of John Wick. Given it’s been labeled a "spin-off" all along, there was no reasonable expectation that it would be this good.

And "good" is a banal descriptor here, a massive understatement.

Ballerina is a wildly entertaining movie that once again expands the world of John Wick and populates it with more colorful characters. The events of Ballerina take place "during" the action of John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum. For the growing fan base, that’s good to know. For the rest of the (shrinking) world living in ignorance of the Wickipedia, rest assured it’s not necessary to have seen the other Wick movies to get a kick out of Ballerina.

The nexus between Parabellum and Ballerina — a source of entertainment for those in the know — is part of a conversation between John and The Director (Anjelica Huston, Prizzi’s Honor), particularly one about a puppy. Not just any puppy. A very special puppy.

It’s a clever way to embed Ballerina’s storyline within the larger Wick saga.

And Ballerina’s story is every bit as personal as John’s.

The ballerina as portrayed by Ana de Armas is Eve Macarro, a young woman who at the tender age of 10 witnessed her father’s murder, watching him die at her side. She’s raised in the care and tutelage of the Ruska Roma. The care, harsh. The tutelage, murderous.

As the stage is set, the 10-year-old ballerina is seen waiting silently in a hallway. She’s bloodied. Her music box, featuring a glass-encased mechanical ballerina set to the music of Swan Lake, is also blood-stained.

Then Winston (Ian McShane) arrives to give her a hand, change the course of her life by taking her to her father's family. There’s a great idea in this setup: amid discussions of fate and choice, there’s the notion Eve’s past was taken from her. It’s time to prevent them from stealing her future as well.

X Marks the Spot

The World of Wick has attracted incredible A-listers, including Anjelica Huston, Ian McShane, Mel Gibson, Halle Berry, Laurence Fishburne, Bill Skarsgard and Donnie Yen. Now Gabriel Byrne joins the "family" as a well-heeled don, a seemingly kindly grandfather type, who’s known only as The Chancellor. He's described as a cult leader, which is a concept that could've been explored in more detail.

He’s ruthless. For him, blood doesn’t run deep. It flows.

Ballerina is a much bigger deal for Ana de Armas than originally expected. Her role as Paloma in Daniel Craig’s final James Bond adventure, No Time to Die, was a good one. By then, long gone were the days of the Playboy playmate "Bond girl," the arm-holding eye candy with not much going on behind the eyes. Paloma served a purpose in the action. But No Time to Die was merely an audition — a warm-up for Ballerina — and it’s a source of joy to report de Armas kicks butt with aplomb. The success of the entire Ballerina experience hinges on her being able to pull it off. She does. She’s great.

Even as a ballerina practicing in front of The Director, Eve struggles through the practice. Repeatedly falling, slipping in her own blood on the stage. Then getting back up and trying again. And again. And again.

The action in Ballerina steps up a notch when Eve escapes a night club (concluding a mission in which the bodies of nefarious agents and guards are strewn left and right; she collects the knives in their backs on her way out). She gets in a car, the front end smashed into a wall, the bumper shielded from the bricks by a dead body hunched over the hood. She backs up, the body drops to the ground, and she drives down a city street, turning left at an intersection. But down the block a car is seen speeding up to the intersection. It slams into her mid-turn — pushing her through the intersection and down the block.

This is done masterfully; it’s all caught on film from an aerial view in a single shot, in real time.

Part of the charm of the John Wick series is its embrace of the practical, the real, over the CGI. It’s in large part because of the Herculean feats on display in the Wick movies the crafts men and women behind the stunts will finally be given their proper recognition when the Oscars honor stunt work starting with the 100th Academy Awards ceremony in 2028.

Going back to those city streets, Eve has the car door open, she’s sitting sideways in the driver’s seat as her car is shoved down the block sideways by an assassin driven to remove Eve from the world’s stage.

That’s the moment when it becomes clear Ballerina and Ana both mean business.

Code of Conduct

There are some astoundingly inventive fight sequences here. We’re talking about the kind of movie moments of which classics are made.

The aforementioned car crash is merely one in a series of jaw-dropping, rigorous fight scenes that find new ways to be innovative, unnerving and comical.

There’s a terrific scene in an Austrian lodge, in the kitchen. Plates are strewn across the floor, covering a gun that needs to be found. The plates are smashed against heads and bodies while Eve and her opponent feverishly look for the firearm among the dishware.

A hotel room brawl comically ends with a TV remote entering the combat. Channels are flipped from one classic movie to another, each mimicking the chaos in the room.

There are so many "oh wow" moments in Ballerina, so many good lines of quotable dialogue. So much "Wick-ed" good humor. It’s enough for even non-smokers to start craving a cigarette.

A personal favorite is a fantastic duel of flamethrowers that ends with Eve showing the ultimate in resourcefulness when her flamethrower runs out of gas. She takes a fire hose to her opponent in a spectacular duel of fire and water. She does exactly what her instructors taught her in the ways of the Ruska Roma: improvise, adapt, cheat.

Crazy. Good. Stuff.

And it’s choreographed and framed in ways that bring home the reality of the on-set dangers unlike so many other action movies drenched in bits and bytes.

Lux In Tenebris

Hallstatt, Austria, serves as the scenic, icy backdrop for much of the action. Much as Paris was revealed as a hotbed of High Table activity and the glorious action qualified as a "ratatouille western," Hallstatt is revealed as a town full of rules and consequences — and the preferred tranquil spot for assassins to raise a family. The action here, then, could be considered a "schnitzel western." Sorry. Too hard to resist. Especially when Mr. Wick arrives in Hallstatt and steps off the train to an unmistakable musical reference to Ennio Morricone.

Yes, Keanu Reeves returns as John Wick in Ballerina. His is not a big role, but his actions are significant, nonetheless.

As they say, "Rules and consequences."

It’s interesting to consider Ana de Armas (an Oscar nominee for her starring role as Marilyn Monroe in Blonde) in the context of other highly regarded dramatic actresses who have also entered the action-thriller fray. Jennifer Lawrence (Red Sparrow), Angelina Jolie (Wanted, Salt, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Charlize Theron (Atomic Blonde), Uma Thurman (Kill Bill) and Alicia Vikander (Tomb Raider) to name several. Their performances have all been great, but the commercial response has too often been muted, undeservedly lackluster.

Hmmm... And then there’s Anne Parillaud. The original La Femme Nikita in Luc Besson’s 1990 French classic. Parillaud makes a too-brief cameo here, as a concierge in the Prague Continental. Actually, it's a head-scratcher as to where she is. Perhaps on the cutting room floor? It’s a nice thought to bring her into the world of Wick, a nice touch, but a larger role with greater visibility would’ve been even better.

Maybe with Ballerina, the glass ceiling of blockbuster status will be broken. This is a movie which acknowledges the heroine is smaller than her oftentimes massive male opponents. Her strategy, then, is to use her physical strength, certainly, but supplement it with resourcefulness and a sharp, focused mindset that will give her the clarity to change the terms of the contest to her favor.

Eve doesn't use sex and seduction as her primary weapons; they're beneath her. She doesn’t wear a supersuit empowering her with inhuman abilities. She wasn’t exposed to radiation that miraculously favorably altered her genetic composition. She was "merely" treated to a nightmarish upbringing which fueled an unwavering will to survive against all odds.

• Originally published at MovieHabit.com.

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