Ballerina

The Dance of Prometheus

If the original *John Wick* films are a symphony of bullets—a precise, rhythmic, and relentless percussion—then *Ballerina* attempts to be its operatic aria. Directed by Len Wiseman, this 2025 expansion of the "Wick-verse" steps out of the shadow of Baba Yaga not by mimicking his stoicism, but by embracing a messier, hotter rage. Where John Wick was a man trying to get out, Ana de Armas’s Eve Macarro is a woman trying to burn her way in. The film is not a technical breakthrough so much as a stylistic pivot: it trades the "gun-fu" precision of Chad Stahelski for a grittier, more emotional brawling style that feels less like a video game and more like a desperate struggle for survival.



Wiseman, known for the gothic sheen of *Underworld*, brings a different visual texture to the table. The neon-noir aesthetic remains, but it feels colder, sharper—literally, in the case of a standout sequence set in an ice-sculpted nightclub that feels like a deliberate nod to the absurdity of 90s action cinema. Yet, the lens is most effective when it focuses on the contrast between the high art of the Ruska Roma’s ballet school and the guttural violence of their trade. The camera lingers on the bruising of feet and the taping of knuckles, visual shorthand suggesting that for Eve, the dance and the kill are the same punishing discipline. The violence here isn’t just cool; it’s exhausting.



At the heart of this storm is Ana de Armas. If her turn in *No Time to Die* was an appetizer, this is the main course. She imbues Eve with a feral intensity that separates her from Keanu Reeves's mythical boogeyman. John Wick is a force of nature; Eve is a human being in pain. Her motivation—avenging a father murdered by a cult leader (played with icy detachment by Gabriel Byrne)—is standard genre fare, but de Armas sells the trauma. She fights not with the efficiency of a machine, but with the frantic energy of someone terrified of their own grief. This is most evident in the film’s much-discussed climax involving flamethrowers. It is a Promethean spectacle, a literal trial by fire where the screen is engulfed in orange madness, symbolizing Eve’s willingness to burn the world down to find peace.



Ultimately, *Ballerina* succeeds because it understands its place. It doesn’t try to out-Wick the original; instead, it offers a counterpoint. It is a story about the messy, imprecise nature of beginning a life of violence, set against the twilight of John Wick’s own journey (fittingly placed between *Chapter 3* and *Chapter 4*). While the script occasionally buckles under the weight of franchise-building obligations—shoehorning in cameos that distract rather than enhance—the film finds its footing in the silence between the gunshots. It suggests that while revenge is a universal language in this universe, the dialect spoken by Eve Macarro is uniquely, tragically her own.