Ballerina (2025) Review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNN2PoilSp4

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

Just because you know one tale that stands the test of time does not mean it’s the only one occurring.


PLOT


2025’s Ballerina is a spinoff to the John Wick franchise, taking place between Chapter 3 - Parabellum and Chapter 4. Instead of following Baba Yaga again, the story follows another assassin named Eve Macarro. Eve was first raised by her father Javier (David Castañeda) who was part of the Ruska Roma syndicate and his wife was part of a Cult. When he took her away from the cult, they killed her mother and he later died helping her escape. As a child, she would find her way to Winston, manager of the New York Continental and he takes her to be raised by the Director of Ruska Roma. Under her guidance, she trained her to be an assassin under the guise of a performance dancer. As she grew up, she actually Wick himself prepare heading to Casablanca in his path to freedom. By the time she completed her training, she’s given the alias of “Kikimora”. Two months later, in the middle of a mission, she encounters a Cultist matching the same tattoo of those who killed her dad. She addresses this to the Director, but the latter demands not to pursue since there’s been a long standing truce between both parties. Eve ignores her anyway and visits the NY Continental where Winston explains the Cult is more uncivilized compared to other organizations because they also kill for sport when not for business; Winston also shares that their leader, the Chancellor, has a son named Daniel Pine who is staying at the Prague Continental due to a bounty on him. She tracks him down only to find out he’s protecting his daughter Ella (Ava McCarthy) from the Cult much like her and ends up protecting them from cultists after them. The Continental staff would spare her for not officially breaking hotel rules of doing business on its grounds, but it wouldn’t enough to stop Ella being taken by fellow cultist Lena and Daniel gets injured in the crossfire. After Eve recovers does she gear up with the assist of an arms dealer named Frank (Abraham Popoola), but she gets attacked by more Cultists. While she overcomes that wave, Frank does help her narrow the Cult’s base to be in Halstatt. The moment she gets there does she deal with every inhabitant that is a cultist. She would spend most of the day defending herself until Lena captures her and brings her to the Chancellor. The Chancellor would use this time to explain to her his intent with the Cult is to be a refuge for former assassins. When she escapes, Lena tracks her down and reveals to be her sister claiming Javier abandoned after already being indoctrinated, hoping to keep Eve from the same fate. The Chancellor ends up ordering for both of them to die, but Eve ends up escaping again and surviving unlike her sister. The Chancellor does tell the Director what has happened and declares war, but the latter assures her Eve was only acting rogue and decides sending someone after her. Ultimately, she chooses Wick to be the one to take her out as a a result of returning the favor for her assistance to get him to Casablanca. Wick later arrives and does best Eve in combat and suggests her to leave Halstatt, but ends up sympathizing her need for revenge and gives her until midnight to kill the Chancellor. He assists her from a distance to kill many Cultists on his end whereas she gets to him in time to retrieve Ella. Wick tells the Director what had transpired and she chooses to accept it rather than lament. As Wick parts ways, Eve reunites Ella with Daniel and plans staying at the NY Continental due to leaving Ruska Roma. The film however ends with Winston warning her that those who remain of the Cult will pursue her for revenge.


THOUGHTS


It’s a no brainer Lionsgate would keep milking the cow with John Wick since not only does each one do well at the box office, but the quality is quite consistent. With the Continental series doing well on Peacock, I was very open to see other stories occur in this iteration of the underground assassin world. Not having Chad Stahelski at the director’s chair was a true gamble since he directed four straight entries at this point alongside producer David Leitch, but I knew it’d be in good hands knowing it’d be handled by Len Wiseman, who is the main man by the underrated Underworld franchise. As what I expected, the action is very point thanks to a great editing/cinematography combo and Joel J Richard composing alongside Tyler Bates does give that appropriate mood where the tension is endless even when there is a period of content. As for said action, you definitely see it become bombastic when a flamethrower and ice skates are being used for the climax, but it was a whole other ballgame to see an ice pick get in the mix of the first act or everyone smack each other with plates just to get to a gun in cartoon fashion. Considering shoot ’em  up action is what makes this franchise, you definitely got to wonder what this does different from the past. If anything, I can say it does a great emphasis on how it’s better to choose your own path rather than let your fate be predetermined fate because the latter only takes away your humanity. And if defying whatever authority is what is necessary to remain true to you, so be it and let the domino effect pursue. Ana de Armas did prove she can kick ass in No Time to Die, so playing Eve is quite the upgrade here. What she does different than how Keanu Reeves portrays Baba Yaga is that she had to wait for her opportunity whereas the latter didn’t need to wait because the need to honor his wife outweighed her trauma of losing her dad. She never guaranteed when she would get revenge, but the way she learned how to be methodical sure benefitted her in the long run. It’s an easy choice for Wick to help her because he gets her grief knowing he’s done the same and ain’t gonna be a hypocrite at this point in his life. It was still cool seeing Ian McShane as Winston because he’s the only one who straight up encourages her to do what she feels is her absolute. Angelica Huston is the only one who holds Eve back as the Director because she’s severely organized and doesn’t want to put up with the blowback she causes, but once it went the other way around, was a big relief for her by the end of it. Getting into new characters, Gabriel Byrne is a solid villain as the Chancellor because he’s far more of a tyrant compared to other people we’ve seen in the franchise thus far. He truly thinks a refuge for former assassins is anywhere close of a solution if they’re still gonna kill for sport. Thats just a paradox of problems compared to the rest of the assassin underworld we’ve seen. Seeing how he’s willing to train children to be a part of that, you can respect Norman Reedus portray Daniel be the opposite that would rather perceptive yet guarded to protect Ella the way Javier died trying. It definitely was a left turn making Lena the sister to Eve since there were no signs of anyone left behind, but it sure stirred the pot. In her given time, Catalina Sandino Moreno portrayed her as one with an ideal complexity because she was disciplined and cold blooded yet still had elegance she held back on until an unlikely reunion. She definitely had a point that Ruska Roma might not have much of a difference from the Chancellor’s Cult since they’re all killers at the end of the day, but that comes from resentment she didn’t get the chance to escape the way her sister did. Having said that, her sudden death still sucked because I’m sure she could’ve defected from her side too and travel with her sister had she survived. With whatever happens now, I’m sure Eve will honor her the way she’s honored their dad. This movie kicks the right amount of ass to leave amused, but there are still a few things that don’t make much sense upon rewatching. Like from the top, I do respect Winston wanting Eve to have some kind of code of honor taking her to Ruska Roma, but if he knew Javier didn’t want her to have the same struggles as him, she should’ve not been raised there to begin with even if that’s the whole point of the title. If I got to get into continuity errors, I’d be in a debate on what irritated me more between Cultists swapping directions of the opening ambush between takes and Eve not having the same matching tattoos that the background version of herself had in Parabellum. And it’s kinda odd that there’s an ice pick out in the open in the club as that’s an easy liability issue. It’s cool to see Eve use it, but still crazy no club is safe enough from skilled people like her or Wick to pull weapons like that. And if the Director says Ruska Roma stays out of the Cult’s business and if they do the same in return vice versa, then there should be some kind of discussion with the Chancellor since they still chose to go at it with Eve unaware of what side she was on. Also, I wonder how many times Daniel had to have taken off his contraption every time he had to order room service for his daughter. I mean if he knew he was gonna be feeding her throughout their stay, there could’ve been a better contraption. And personally, I do think Daniel had a better chance just blending in through the crowd rather than cause a scene by shooting in the air. It then feels strange for the Cult to have ballerina souvenirs when that should fit the Ruska Roma criteria. I don’t think it means truce when they could’ve displayed any other souvenir to blend in as any other private town. On top of that, it makes no sense of Lena to keep Eve alive before she knew they were related. If they’ve been  after her for a while after she got involved with Daniel, then she should’ve killed her on sight. Ignore these flaws however, then you can still be impressed with Ballerina being a strong spinoff from the world of John Wick for knowing exactly how exciting it’s meant to be. If the past entries have impressed you thus far, then it’s a no brainer you’ll dig this too.