From the World of John Wick: Ballerina is a spin-off from the John Wick universe, centered on Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas), a woman trained from childhood by the Ruska Roma to be both ballerina and assassin. The film explores her quest for vengeance after her father’s death, and sits in between John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum and John Wick: Chapter 4. Key familiar faces, Winston, The Director, and even John Wick himself, make appearances, giving fans connective tissue to the original saga.
Visually and tonally, Ballerina delivers in spades. The action sequences are inventive, brutal, and often almost balletic in their choreography, flamethrowers, ice‐skates, breakable props, stylized deaths, and the like. The second half of the film especially embraces this, building up to an extended crescendo of creative carnage. Ana de Armas proves a strong lead: she handles both the grace-under-fire moments and the dramatic beats with poise, even if some may find her character less emotionally weighty than Keanu Reeves’ Wick.
However, Ballerina does not entirely escape criticism. The first act is often described as slow, with weaker pacing and less satisfying fight choreography; some of the early scenes use shaky camera work or editing tricks that obscure rather than enhance the action. The emotional stakes, outside of the revenge plot, never reach great depth, and supporting characters (including the antagonist, the Chancellor, played by Gabriel Byrne) sometimes feel under-used. The dialogue, too, leans toward familiar tropes rather than inventive or surprising writing.
In terms of place in the franchise, Ballerina feels both comfortably familiar and somewhat derivative. It borrows much of the aesthetic and structural DNA of the John Wick films (gun play, ultra-stylized violence, mythic assassin societies), and that’s both its strength and its weakness. For fans who want more of the same, bigger set-pieces, blood, choreographed fight scenes, it delivers. For viewers hoping for something that pushes the universe forward in narrative or thematic complexity, it may fall short.
Overall, Ballerina is a visceral, flashy ride, one that doesn’t always stick the landing in its early stretch, but largely redeems itself in the latter half. If you go in knowing what you want (action, style, revenge, spectacle), you’ll likely enjoy it. If you expect deep character work or a fresh divergence from John Wick tropes, you might come away a little wanting.
Here are some memorable lines / quotes from Ballerina (2025)
Eve: “They killed my father. This isn’t done until they’re dead.”
Eve: “You are Him. The one they call the Baba Yaga. How do I start doing what you do?”
John Wick: “Looks like you already have.”
Winston: “At a time of loss there’s nothing easier than pity and nothing more difficult than the truth, as there are no easy answers for grief.”
Winston [to young Eve]: “Do you like to dance? I know a school where they teach dances. I could take you there if you like.”
Nogi: “To become Kikimora, you must become the assassin. You must learn to move like him and think like him.”
Nogi: “You will always be weaker. You will always be smaller. You want to win? Improvise. Adapt. Cheat.”
The Chancellor: “One bullet… well placed… can be a magical thing. It’s neither good. Nor evil. But how a man uses it, reveals his true character.”
Javier: “You’re a fucking coward. you’re trying to convince yourself that fate absolves you of your actions.”
