Why “Ballerina” Trips Over Its Own Kicks: Ana de Armas’ Wick Spinoff Falls Flat
Brace yourselves—Ana de Armas’ Ballerina sashays into the John Wick universe with the subtlety of a grenade, boasting slick fight choreography but botching nearly everything else. From the opening credits, director Len Wiseman parades neon-soaked Mumbai streets and ultra-stylized hallway brawls that smack of high-end video-game cutscenes. Yet under the polish, you’ll find a story thread thinner than a ballerina’s ankle strap.
Our heroine, Rooney (de Armas), was groomed to juggernaut levels of violence at the Continental Hotel’s clandestine assassin academy. You know the drill: orphan seeks vengeance, trains in quasi-mystical kickboxing, then delivers enough bone-crunching leg sweeps to fill a workout montage. On paper, it’s a fine riff on Wick’s “personal vendetta” formula. In practice? Rooney’s motivations wobble like a half-deflated punch bag. Screenwriters Shay Hatten and Emerald Fennell drop breadcrumbs about her tragic past, but those breadcrumbs vanish the moment the next stunt sequence starts.
Let’s talk action, since that’s the one thing Ballerina actually nails. Fight designer Jonathan Eusebio stages consecutive gun-kata duels that groove to a techno beat, courtesy of composer Mark Isham. Variety praised these set pieces for “barrel-roll bravado,” and The Hollywood Reporter admits they’re the only reason most viewers will stay awake. Still, when every encounter looks like a warp-speed TikTok highlight reel, individual punches start to blur into white-knuckled wallpaper.
And speaking of wallpaper, characters beyond Rooney exist purely to sell backstory postcards. John Wick himself gets a cameo so fleeting you’d miss him if you blink. New York Post’s own review called it a “blink-and-you-miss-him cameo,” which is generous when you realize Keanu Reeves is effectively a glorified easter egg. Supporting players spout expositional dialogue that could’ve been ripped from a bullet-pointed pitch deck: “She’s our best asset,” “This place has no rules,” and so on, ad nauseam.
On the bright side, Wiseman’s flair for neon and rain-slicked streets delivers undeniable style cred. De Armas also has charisma to spare—when she’s not leap-frogging over CGI crates, she can muster a decent smirk. Too bad those moments are eclipsed by her doing endless reverse-somersault kills that defy every law of physics except “looks cool on IMAX.”
In the end, Ballerina is a textbook case of style trumping substance. As an action spectacle, it kicks with precision. As a narrative? It trips over its own choreography. And that’s today’s dose of reality. You’re welcome.
Sources: Celebrity Storm and New York Post, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter
Attribution: Courtesy of Lionsgate (Creative Commons)
