Ballerina (2025)

Ballerina is a John Wick spin-off which sees Ana de Armas play Eve who is trying to get revenge on the man who killed her father. There is something about Ana de Armas that makes her playing a role such as Eve work. If you were casting someone to play this role then you wouldn't pick someone like de Armas. To be fair to her, the main reason why it works is because she is convincing in the role and all the fights look like she is taking the punishment. I think that her short role in the last James Bond film got her this gig and was a good test but she hasn't really been able to lead her own film and so the question would be whether this would be the one that shows us what she could do.

This was a Len Wiseman credited film but it's clear that Chad Stahelski was either involved in a significant way in some or all of the fight scenes. I am willing to go out on a limb and say that all the good things were Stahelski and everything else is Len Wiseman because I don't think that Wiseman is the best director in the world and was probably a terrible idea to direct this film and the studio figured this out and got Stahelski to save the day. The flamethrower portion of the film was the highlight of the film. The shot of the flamethrower and the hose was in the trailer but in the film this comes at the end of a good portion of the film where lots and lots and lots of people are set on fire. This must get a Guiness World Record for most people set on fire in a major motion picture. I also thought the fight scene in the cafe was quite good although when the woman who worked there came out of the freezer and was instantly killed did feel a bit comedic and got an unexpected chuckle from me. 

The plot is straight forward and you don't really watch John WIck for the complex plot but the four films are entertaining at least and this one felt very plodding. Woman wants to get revenge on the person who killed her father does feel like we have been here before with John Wick 1 but with a dog instead of a human. The first 20 minutes had me worried because I wasn't very interested in it and thought that the story was going to get bogged down but mercifully Eve starts hitting people. There are a couple of references to the John WIck films apart form the obvious with Angelica Houston returns as The DIrector doing most if not all her scenes sitting down and we get Lance Reddick in what had to be one of his last scenes before he sadly passed away and Ian McShane returning as Winston. I like that they didnt bother trying to make McShane look younger when he’s talking to Young Eve.

The introduction of her sister could have been cut out of the film because it added nothing to the story. By the time the film reveals that the other woman is Eve’s sister she is treated as a real person for all of five minutes before Gabriel Byrne’s The Chancellor orders them dead and Eve’s sister is killed. Also the idea of The Chancellor being the head of a cult seems a bit silly and again not needed. Norman Reedus was wasted in this film. His character is not really the focus of the story so you could have given this to a nobody and it would have worked out the same because is sidelined pretty much straight away until the end when he is reunited with his daughter. I get the impression a lot of his stuff was caught you wouldn't cast someone like Reedus to that role.

The trailer showed that John Wick would feature in this spin off and its just the right amount. It’s not too much to steal the spotlight from Ana de Armas and not too little to stand out for being a missed opportunity. All his scenes are very good and Keanu Reeves gets to have a very good fight with And de Armas. 

I enjoyed Ballerina a lot more than I thought I would. If you go into it not expecting this to be as good as the John Wick films then you will have a much better time. This film suffers from bad pacing at the beginning but once the action scenes and fights happen then the quality picks up. It is clear that they are setting up a sequel and to be honest if Stahelski was directing then I would be up for another outing of Ballerina.