Ballerina: a lifeless John Wick spin-off

“Fight like a girl,” the heroine of Ballerina is instructed. Apparently, taken to its logical conclusion (to the extent that any movie set in the John Wick universe can be said to have a logical conclusion) this imperative means duelling with flamethrowers and using ice skates like bayonets, impressively inventive bits of carnage in a movie whose body count is in triple digits before the end of the first act. The only thing more extreme than the violence in Len Wiseman’s film – the second Wick spin-off after the underwhelming series The Continental (2023) – is the blitheness with which it gets dished out; if it’s possible for a film to be both bloody and bloodless, Ballerina sticks the landing. 

The only bit of gore that really hurts in Ballerina is the first: a close-up on the mutilated toes of Eve (Ana de Armas), the revenge-minded orphan introduced – under a different name and played by a different actress – in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019). That film’s director, Chad Stahelski, reportedly oversaw extensive reshoots on Ballerina, which may be why it feels so of a piece with its predecessor – a victory in and of itself. Over-elaborate, fan-service backstory is the lingua franca of 21st-century franchise filmmaking, and it’s amusing how much exposition is required to fill in the literal blank of de Armas’s stoic, dead-eyed character. 

Our Eve is grieving the murder of her father, a seemingly good dude despite his shady connections (he was planning on going straight right before catching a bullet). Rescued by Winston Scott (again played by Ian McShane) and offered sanctuary at the Continental Hotel (neutral ground for the criminal underworld), she’s swiftly recruited by the Ruska Roma and their mercenary matriarch the Director (Anjelica Huston), who wants to cultivate the kid’s killer instinct. 

Cut to Eve’s decade-plus of training, a montage smartly juxtaposing different ways to discipline and weaponise one’s body. Meanwhile, as a symbol of lost innocence, Eve carries around a music box that plays Tchaikovsky – a wry overture for an aspiring literal nut-cracker. At first, Eve does as the Director tells her, bumping off various mobsters en masse and earning her stripes in the form of tattoos. When one of her many (many) vanquished henchmen turns out to have a connection to the underworld kingpin (Gabriel Byrne) who presided over her dad’s death, Eve sees red and goes rogue, cutting ties with the Director and stocking up on weapons in the armouries that serve, videogame like, as save points in a relentlessly sidescrolling adventure. Ostensibly, she’s seeking out Byrne’s Chancellor, who’s up to his old habits of trying to kidnap little girls, although the real intrigue lies in whether or not Eve will come face to face with you-know-who. 

Given the movie’s marketing, it’s not a spoiler to say that Keanu is indeed on hand, contributing a short but welcome cameo that serves as a sort of certificate of authenticity. He’s there to pass the torch, but Eve already has her flamethrower. 

The funniest thing about the John Wick movies – the way that they take place in a twilight world where seemingly every other person on the street is a member of some kind of secret society with its own clandestine codes and forms of currency – gets doubled down on in Ballerina. In the final act, the action migrates to a remote Alpine town whose inhabitants are all packing heat: not just the local Swat team, but bakers, barmaids, you name it. The tension between the material’s inherent goofiness and the story’s pushy sentimental beats gets gruelling, and so, frankly, does the close-quarters fight choreography. It’s always nice to see Byrne, who’s been scarce since Hereditary (2018), but he doesn’t have much juice as a Big Bad, while Huston chews her dialogue desultorily, like a bored kid playing with her food. 

Ideally, Ballerina would vibrate with a sense of urgency, but the prevailing vibe is closer to obligation. Ultimately, the only things at stake here are continuity and the possibility of the series’ continuation. The late image of Eve’s name written next to an outrageous sum of money succinctly sums up the ruthless and self-reflexively mercenary nature of the entire enterprise.

► Ballerina is in UK cinemas from 6 June.