Ballerina (2025) is the fifth film installment in the John Wick franchise and is a spinoff that takes place between the events of John Wick 3 and 4.
Ana de Armas plays the titular Ballerina, Eve, the daughter of an assassin who seeks vengeance against her father’s killer.
Keanu Reeves makes an appearance as John Wick and Norman Reedus guest stars as another assassin, Pine.
The plot is simple enough and really just exists to facilitate the action. It’s not a character study by any means, even less deep than the other John Wick films in my opinion. But that’s not actually a negative. I think it’s better as a purely action-driven adventure.
An early version of the script found its way onto the Black List in 2017, so the foundation of the story is solid.
Ana de Armas does everything you’d expect her to do as a now well established movie star. She doesn’t try to make the role more than it is and is believable as an action star, which we got a glimpse of when she played Bond girl Paloma in the James Bond film No Time to Die.
Not that the action itself is believable, but you don’t enter the John Wick Universe looking for realism. Gun Fu, the exciting combination of gun play and martial arts that the original John Wick made famous, is on full display here. A particularly great sequence occurs when Eve enters a gun store and is attacked by would be assassins. She’s forced to make her exit, ironically, without a gun.
I do suggest watching at least the first John Wick film first before watching Ballerina. I watched Ballerina with my wife, who hadn’t seen any John Wick before, and had to pause the movie multiple times to explain how The Continental functioned and what medallions were and who The Baba Yaga was and so on.
Overall, Ballerina is a solid extension of the John Wick Universe and lays the groundwork for multiple future installments, including Ana de Armas’s character and the character played by Norman Reedus.
It’s definitely worth a watch if you’re in the mood for intense action that doesn’t require you to think too much (if at all).
