Pirouettes, Powder Burns, and a Flamethrower: Ballerina Finds a New Rhythm in the Wickverse

Ana de Armas swaps pliés for headshots in a chilly, stylish spin‑off that (mostly) sticks the landing

There’s a particular pleasure in watching a franchise test its own spine. From the World of John Wick: Ballerina doesn’t just borrow Wick’s tailor, tattoos, and table manners; it tries on his entire gait, then pivots into something looser, scrappier, and—at its best—wickedly playful. It’s not John Wick: Chapter 5. It’s John Wick: chapter adjacent, a revenge fable that cares less about mythmaking and more about the brutal physics of a young assassin learning how to move through a world where everything—including a candelabra, a pointe shoe, or a tavern stool—can be weaponized.

For housekeeping up top: the film opened wide on June 6, 2025, is rated R, runs 2 hours and 5 minutes, and hit streaming July 1. U.S. gross sits around $58 million as of this writing, making this a modest domestic performer by Wick standards but no slouch for a spin‑off.

Set between John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum and Chapter 4, Ballerina centers on Eve (Ana de Armas), a Ruska Roma‑trained ballerina‑assassin who turns vengeance into vocation after a childhood trauma. The story is clean and classical: a murdered father, a shadowy nemesis called the Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne), and a heroine who keeps moving even when her knuckles and conscience scream for rest. Keanu Reeves drifts in for a brief, anchoring appearance as the Baba Yaga himself; the movie never forgets whose world Eve is inheriting, but it’s careful to let her own arc lead.

The Wick‑verse stalwarts show up with the just‑right mix of gravitas and mischief. Anjelica Huston’s flinty Director presides again over the Ruska Roma; Ian McShane returns as a sardonic Winston; and the late, great Lance Reddick gets one final, bittersweet bow as Charon. They’re joined by Gabriel Byrne, who brings an ecclesiastical chill to the Chancellor, and Norman Reedus, whose enigmatic Daniel Pine glides in and out like a messenger from a thornier sequel. (Director Len Wiseman has all but said he cast Reedus with future stories in mind.)

If the Wick films build their set‑pieces like operas, Ballerina plays them like riffs—tight, punchy, and prone to a streak of slapstick that sneaks up on you. The standout is a totally bonkers barroom brawl that veers from balletic precision to Looney Tunes chaos without losing its lethal edge; another late‑film sequence in a windswept Central European village of killers shows the franchise’s appetite for audacity hasn’t softened. That tonal elasticity—grim one minute, almost impish the next—will be catnip for some, whiplash for others, but it’s undeniably a new flavor.

The look of the film is frigid neon: a deep‑winter palette of icy blues and bruised purples that feel halfway between nightclub and morgue. The new locales help. We get a Prague‑set Continental, riverfront cat‑and‑mouse along the Vltava, and gleaming modernist interiors that make you pine for a black card and a bulletproof tux. Shot extensively in Prague (with landmark sightings like the National Theatre and the Náplavka waterfront), it broadens Wick’s visual atlas without losing that fetishistic attention to architecture and texture.

De Armas is the movie’s biggest swing and best argument. She plays Eve like a dancer who can’t stop listening to the music—head cocked, shoulders squared, eyes always counting the beat. This is not Wick’s implacable freight train; Eve is improvisational, sly, and visibly mortal. Her fights are puzzles she solves in motion, finding leverage in the room and rhythm in the chaos. When she takes a hit, the movie doesn’t cut away. When she dishes one out, it lands with the sharp punctuation of a snare drum. It feels right that the score comes from franchise hands—Tyler Bates and Joel J. Richard—whose propulsive synths and throbbing motifs give the action that familiar, adrenalized hum.

Len Wiseman’s direction is, unsurprisingly, cleaner and less baroque than Chad Stahelski’s. Where Stahelski often indulges in ballerina‑stiff tableaux—wide frames, longer takes, operatic geometry—Wiseman shoots like a tactician, cutting a hair faster, pushing closer to the bruise, and pulling out when the geography needs clarifying. The result is less “moving paintings of violence” and more “elegant chaos you can track.” That trade will frustrate some Wick purists. But it also makes room for Wiseman’s sense of humor: a running bit with a flamethrower feels like something beamed in from an alternate universe where Buster Keaton grew up to choreograph gun‑fu. (Wiseman has said that flamethrower throwdown was largely practical, and you can feel the heat.)

As a character piece, Ballerina is a solid study in momentum. Eve doesn’t get John’s haunted, epitaph‑of‑a‑man aura, but she does get something more tactile: the itch of a person learning what she’s capable of, then horrified at how natural it feels. De Armas threads a thin, necessary line—letting the steel show through the silk while preserving the vulnerability that made her No Time to Die cameo pop. The movie’s small grace notes—Eve trying to breathe through pain like it’s a fouetté gone wrong; the miniature rituals of cleaning, loading, and lacing up—sell the conceit better than any speech about “rules.”

And yet, there’s no denying Ballerina sometimes wobbles en pointe. The opening movement has a staccato quality—exposition that lands like punches, not prose—and a few scenes press the mythology button when you wish they’d press the character one. You can also feel the gravitational pull of John Wick whenever Reeves enters; the film briefly becomes a duet, and the audience leans toward the familiar partner. When the dust settles, some of the supporting players—Reedus’s Daniel Pine among them—feel more like teasers for the expanded universe than fully brewed infusions in this one. (If Wiseman gets his sequel, expect Pine to matter more.)

On the action ledger, though, the film rarely shortchanges you. The club fight is tactile and mean. A kitchen tussle turns mise‑en‑place into WHMIS. A snowy pursuit through tight, ancient streets scratches the same itch as Wick’s motorcycle ballet, just with less grandeur and more grit. And that tavern blowout? It’s the sort of delirious escalation that makes you grin despite yourself: choreography tuned to punchlines and pain in equal measure.

If you come to Ballerina for world‑building calories, you’ll leave fed but not stuffed. The High Table’s etiquette still rules the room—gold coins glint, markers bind, and Latin mottos flex—but the film wisely resists over‑explaining its new sects and customs. We learn just enough about the Chancellor’s cult to hate them and just enough about Eve’s training to admire her. The movie’s restraint here is welcome; the Wickverse is sexiest when it implies there’s a library of lore we’ll never get to read.

As a piece of franchise strategy, Ballerina is interestingly modest. The film doesn’t try to one‑up Chapter 4’s operatic body‑count symphonies, and it doesn’t attempt a reinvention. Instead, it sketches a different temperature: halfway between the polished brutality fans love and a dirtier, funnier, more intimate kill‑suite. Judged against Wick’s mountain peaks, it sits comfortably at the treeline—beautiful vistas, the occasional thin air, and a welcome change of scenery.

For the box‑score obsessives: the movie’s worldwide haul has hovered in the low‑hundreds (roughly $132 million globally), respectable for a spin‑off without Wick in the driver’s seat. Notably, it found its second life fast with a quick streaming turn after release—a sign Lionsgate sees Eve as an accessible on‑ramp for the uninitiated, not just a treat for the Wickheads who can quote the Rulebook.

Does it belong in the Hidden Gems & Limelight pantheon? Not as a revelation, but absolutely as a bright, bullet‑scarred spotlight on an actress who proves she can carry this brand’s weight. De Armas is the franchise’s smartest acquisition since a pencil. Romain Lacourbas’ cinematography gives her room to dance and bleed; Bates and Richard pour rocket fuel into her footwork; and Wiseman, to his credit, lets the camera stand back often enough that we can appreciate the craft. When Ballerina falters, it’s because the script sometimes treats Eve like a function—an equation to solve—rather than a person we’re dying to follow into the next disaster.

The good news? Even when the math shows, the movie still moves. And in this world, momentum is half the magic.

The Verdict

Ballerina doesn’t dethrone its forebear, but it spins out a lean, punchy companion piece with a lead you’ll want to see again. Come for the choreography, stay for the tavern fight, and leave with the sense that the Wickverse just learned a new step.

Score: 3.5 out of 5

Quick facts for planners: From the World of John Wick: Ballerina — Directed by Len Wiseman; written by Shay Hatten; starring Ana de Armas, Anjelica Huston, Ian McShane, Keanu Reeves, Gabriel Byrne, and Norman Reedus as Daniel Pine; set between Chapter 3 and Chapter 4; shot extensively in Prague; score by Tyler Bates & Joel J. Richard. Release: June 6 (theatrical), streaming from July 1; 2h05m; Rated R.

Thanks for reading Hidden Gems & Limelight. If you’d like a spoiler‑deep dive on Eve’s final choice—or a ranking of the Wickverse’s best brawls—say the word and we’ll lace up.