Ballerina (2025): A Stylish Spin or a Missed Step?

“Revenge, like ballet, is nothing without perfect balance.”

The John Wick universe has always balanced bone-crunching brutality with operatic elegance, so when director Len Wiseman announced Ballerina (2025)—a story set neatly between the events of Chapter 3 and Chapter 4—expectations spun faster than a prima ballerina’s fouetté. Ana de Armas steps into the spotlight as Eve Macarro, an orphan molded by the Ruska Roma into a dancer who can pirouette and kill with equal poise. The question, of course, is whether this spin-off furthers the mythology or simply echoes the original’s footwork.

Why Ballerina Feels Like a Natural Extension

Narratively, the film settles into an unclaimed pocket of timeline that allows familiar characters to drift through without overshadowing Eve’s journey. Cameos from Winston, Charon (the late, great Lance Reddick), and a hauntingly restrained John Wick remind us where we are, yet never steal the spotlight. More important, the screenplay reaches beyond the High Table to introduce the Chancellor, a cult-like figure whose private army hints at whole new strata of criminal power. By broadening the underworld in this way, the film feels less like a side quest and more like a vital chapter in an expanding saga.

Ana de Armas: From Pirouette to Piledriver

De Armas has flirted with action before, but here she delivers a performance that marries ballerina grace to assassin ferocity. Months of weapons drills and dance rehearsals manifest in every movement; her leaps transition into strikes without ever looking choreographed. Beneath the physicality, she plays Eve as a wounded prodigy—furious at the world yet frightened of what vengeance might cost. That layered intensity prevents the character from becoming a mere John Wick echo and firmly establishes her as a tragic heroine in her own right.

Choreographed Carnage

Wiseman and fight coordinator Jonathan Eusebio stage the violence like grand set pieces from a blood-soaked ballet. A warehouse inferno casts flamethrower plumes against industrial shadows, each swirl of fire punctuated by Eve’s blistering footwork. Later, a hall-of-mirrors brawl revisits the visual poetry of Chapter 2 but complicates it with dizzying overhead shots that weaponize every reflective pane. The standout, however, is an Abbey duel where candlelit pews splinter beneath hammering gunfire while Gregorian chants bleed into a throbbing electronic score—an audacious fusion of sacred calm and secular carnage. Even when the CGI blood splatter briefly betrays the illusion, the film’s commitment to practical stunt work keeps the momentum hypnotic.

Where the Pointe Slips

All that spectacle can’t entirely mask some narrative wobble. Eve’s murdered sister, whose death drives the plot, receives little development beyond flashback sorrow, so her absence lacks the emotional heft that John Wick’s puppy provided. Further, Gabriel Byrne’s Chancellor drips menace but speaks in vague apocalyptic riddles; a clearer ideology would have sharpened the stakes. Finally, while Wick’s appearance jolts the audience, the script contorts itself to justify his presence, flirting with franchise fatigue for newcomers.

Final Curtain Call

At its best, Ballerina feels like watching a dancer interpret a violent concerto—an elegant blur of pointed toes, flickering muzzle flashes, and cracked bone. For longtime devotees, it stands as an 8.5-out-of-10 testament to how far the series can stretch without snapping. Casual viewers may wish for deeper character work, but few modern action films marry aesthetics and adrenaline so convincingly. If Chapter 4 pushed the envelope, Ballerina folds it into an origami dagger and pirouettes straight for your jugular.

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Curious for more details? What’s After the Movie offers an in-depth summary, interactive quizzes, links to other providers, and plenty of trivia on its dedicated Ballerina page. The broader blog continues to chronicle every twist of the expanding Wick-verse.

If you’d like additional perspectives, critics and fans alike are busy debating Eve Macarro’s ballet-of-bullets arc on Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb, Media Stinger, TMDB, Wikipedia, Letterboxd, IMCDb, and Fandango. Dive in, compare notes, and decide for yourself whether this assassin’s dance lands en pointe.