Ronit J

Ballerina (2025) Synopsis:

Vengeance has a new face.

Taking place during the events of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, Eve Macarro begins her training in the assassin traditions of the Ruska Roma.

Ballerina (2025) Review:

I had enough reservations to almost not watch the Ballerina. Not because it’s a female-led film, but because it’s another spin-off. Still, I wanted to watch something light and easy, so I decided to dive in…

I’ll admit, I didn’t expect a plot or strong characters. I went in just for the mindless action. But, did the film satisfy my itch? Read and find out…

A John Wick Spin-Off

The very first thing that is apparent about Ballerina is that it’s a John Wick spin-off. It’s stylish, there’s gratuitous violence, and the world feels very much familiar. That should have been the establishing point, and then we could have moved on. Instead, the makers constantly return to John Wick references, resorting to familiar tropes and setups that start to feel tedious.

Ballerina—purely because of its setting of the Ruska Roma—could have been its own thing. But no. The film very quickly jumps back into the John Wick world.

Eve (Ana de Armas) has a great, if not trope-y, origin story. Her integration into the Ruska Roma following the death of her father unfolds pretty much like any generic action film. The training montage, however, was what got my hopes up just a little. We got something sort of new there. Sadly, the film didn’t wait all too long before regressing into a John Wick-generic Action Flick mashup pretty quickly.

To make matters worse, John Wick (Keanu Reeves) appears way more than he should. Almost as if the makers didn’t trust that the extremely popular Ana de Armas could hold the film by herself. Hell, giving Wick a deus ex machina moment where he literally rescues Eve in the finale, as well as an entire fight sequence by himself, is telling of how little they trusted Armas.

Fails at the Fundamentals

The plot is pretty straightforward. We get an origin story, followed by a training montage, and then a path of vengeance. Sounds good, right? Well, it takes so long for the actual plot to kick off (almost 35-40 minutes, I think?) that I was very much bored at that point. I mean, it’s not even a unique origin story or an interesting training montage to demand so much screentime. It’s almost like they used this time as an excuse to highlight key John Wick elements (The Continental, Ruska Roma, etc.).

What about the action? Generic. Apart from maybe two action sequences (the one inside the gun shop and the finale with the flamethrowers), every other action set piece is very blah. If Ballerina were a standalone action film, it could’ve gotten away with it. But as a John Wick spin-off, though, it is disappointing at best and bad at worst. For a film whose USP is action, you can’t slack off in that aspect.

The writing does the bare minimum required to tell a story, and stops right there. The ‘fight like a girl’ advice in the beginning doesn’t make any comeback in the finale. Eve finds out she has a sister, and almost nothing substantial happens because of it. And the whole Hallstatt cult? Yeah, that was just a setup for another pointless sequel shamelessly in the spirit of John Wick.

The plot is unnecessarily convoluted, the action is meh, the John Wick connections are inseparable to the point that Ballerina’s potential is wholly wasted in trying to make sure the audience doesn’t forget this is a John Wick Film.

Talk about unnecessary franchise expansions. Sigh.

Ballerina (2025) Ending Explained (SPOILERS)

After a relatively above-average action sequence in the finale, Eve kills The Chancellor. Her vengeance is complete. She watches Tatiana’s ballet performance when she gets a notification on her phone. The Hallstatt Cult has now put out a bounty on Eve’s head for $5 million. Oh no, what will Ballerina do now?

I don’t even have it in me to explain more about the ending, because it couldn’t have been more clear and simplistic.

Will there be a Ballerina sequel? There are plans for a sequel, but I have no plans of watching it.

Is Ballerina (2025) worth watching?

No.

Apart from maybe two action sequences, even the main USP of the film is just… meh. The film clearly suffers from studio interference because there are two very clear behind-the-scenes anxieties that bleed through. John Wick’s inclusion—the role he plays as well as the screentime he gets—demonstrates the studio’s a) lack of confidence over a female protagonist and b) lack of confidence over a spin-off.

Ask yourself: do you really want to watch a film that even the makers weren’t confident about?

In Conclusion:

Ballerina (2025) is a film with great potential that’s wasted because the film was inherently unnecessary. It took almost twenty films for superhero fatigue to set in. With John Wick, I guess the cap was five.

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