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Ballerina…. “From The World Of John Wick“, just to hammer home to casual cinemagoers of this film’s origins, just so no-one thinks this is a two-hour movie about ballet.
After a situation right at the start (hence, I mention it here), in which Daddy has been fridged, leaving young Eve an orphan, at the hands of The Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne, rather hamming it up, but if you still haven’t seen him in End of Days, opposite Arnie, I highly recommend that), she’s brought to The Director (Anjelica Huston – 50/50) at a ballet school.
Yes, few people in this movie seem to have real name, but that doesn’t matter too much, because even right from the start, there’s a stack of action, so DO NOT arrive late to this film, as you’ll miss a fair bit of it.
Even is brought into Continental, at which point Winston gives her the first coin she’ll own, but later, once she’s an adult (and played by Ana de Armas – Ghosted), and practicing to become a ballerina, why does Anjelica keep asking her to repeat by saying, “Again!” in Spanish, when her many subsequent words are in English?!
Anyhoo, for her training to become an assassin, I thought it’d take forever before she gets into the field, but it doesn’t take as long as I felt, and then once it does kick in, there’s a great deal more kicking, punching, shooting, etc. than I expected, and certainly a lot more than the average modern action movie.
There’s also a smattering of John Wick (Keanu Reeves, obvs), but I’m not saying where or when. You’ll see him when you see him.
Eve’s first task is to intercept a bad guyin a nightclub, although while it does have ice sculptures, someone casually leaves an ice pick lying around. Excuse me?! Go into any UK nightclub, and they won’t allow regular beer glasses away from the bar!
Still, two months later, she’s more focused on the job, giving more precise results, but the club is a night intro to her journey.
Later on, she’s off to search for baddie Daniel Pine (Norman Reedus – The Bikeriders) in Prague, amongst its gorgeous snowy locations. He has a bounty of $4m out on him, his contract having been typed out, yet again, on a Commodore 64! (although an IBM PC also pops up elsewhre in the same office)
I do have a bit of an issue with a remote control being used as a weapon, resulting in showing a TV having 4:3 films stretched wider to fill the 16:9 screen. I hate that! A friend of mine once had his TV set up like that. While he and his wife was in the kitchen, I went into the settings from the remote, and corrected them! Neither of them noticed, and I never told them to this day! HA!
But while there’s great action in Ballerina, there’s not much of a plot. It’s basic good vs evil, with Eve against Byrne and a ton of baddies.
This is also the last onscreen appearance for Lance Reddick, as concierge Charon. And yes, he passed away in 2023, just as John Wick Chapter 4 arrived in cinemas, but Ballerina has been on the shelf for quite some time. It’s set inbetween the third and fourth films in that series, and while the Keanu Reeves film was shot between June 28th and October 27th 2021, this one was filmed between November 7th 2022 and February 2023.
However, there was an issue with the projection. After the previous issues with Odeon’s showing of The Ritual, now it was Cineworld’s time to enter the chat. Similarly, it was just off, and quite soft, with text being just about legible, but still not right.
It can obviously be seen when there’s occasional subtitles as people talk in various other languages, and the subtitles ‘wisp’ onscreen, as well as the fact that overall image isn’t crisp like it should be. As for the closing credits, forget it.
As soon as the opening scene had concluded (since there’s a lot going on in it), you then have a few minutes of a more steady page, during which I nipped out. The guy I spoke to called over another guy, Carl, who came in with me, had a look and said he wasn’t sure if the 3D filter had been left on (even though their only 3D showing is in 4DX, with Lilo And Stitch, up to that point).
I’ll have to contact Cineworld to ask them to find out what the problem is, since NOTHING changed. I can only imagine that whatever it is, it couldn’t be fixed on the day, but I’ll update once I know.
Finally, for now, Ballerina has so far taken $50.5m worldwide on a $90m budget, slightly underperforming on its initial projections (for the US, at least, there taking $24.5m, instead of $28–30m. I might give it a second spin on the big screen before it leaves, so I can see it un-blurry!
NOTE: There are no mid- or post-credits scenes, but it’s safe to say that the film does set up a potential sequel, which I was expecting would come, give the lack of any complex plotting.
Ballerina is in cinemas now, and is available to pre-order on 4K Blu-ray, 4K Blu-ray Steelbook, Blu-ray and DVD.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 126 minutes
Release date: June 6th 2025
Studio: 2.39:1
Cinema: Cineworld Didsbury
Rating: 6.5/10
Director: Len Wiseman
Producers: Basil Iwanyk, Erica Lee, Chad Stahelski
Screenplay: Shay Hatten
Music: Tyler Bates, Joel J Richard
Cast:
Eve: Ana de Armas
John Wich: Keanu Reeves
Winston: Ian McShane
The Director: Anjelica Huston
The Chancellor: Gabriel Byrne
Lena: Catalina Sandino Moreno
Ella: Ava McCarthy
Tatiana: Juliet Doherty
Daniel Pine: Norman Reedus
Charon: Lance Reddick
Nogi: Sharon Duncan-Brewster
Javier: David Castañeda
Young Eve: Victoria Comte
Dex: Robert Maaser
Katla Park: Sooyoung Choi
Il Seong: Doohong Jung
Prague Concierge: Anne Parillaud
Prague Manager: Marc Cram
Petra: Rila Fukushima
Frank: Abraham Popoola
Agnetha the Waitress: Magdalena Šittová
The Eye: Waris Ahluwalia
Scarred Eye Assassin: Daniel Bernhardt
Hallstatt Mother: Anna Schmidtmajerová
Hallstatt Daughter: Emílie Páclová
Mikel: Jackson Spidell
Club Promoter: James Beaumont
Muriel: Tracie Bennett
The Baptist: Mirko Marchesi
Garner: Zac Ladkin
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.