Ballerina’s a Sick John Wick Flick
Ballerina is both one of the best spin-offs and one of the finest female-led action movies I’ve ever seen. For starters, it’s every bit as good as your favorite John Wick flick—and it improves upon the Wick formula. As much as I loved the last couple of John Wick installments, the action was so relentless that it started to feel exhausting. Ballerina, by contrast, never wears out its welcome, and—having watched an absurd number of films in this genre—I’m genuinely surprised by how often it catches me off guard.
Ana de Armas absolutely kills it. Honestly, I wasn’t sure how well her petite frame would translate to the John Wick world, but the fight choreography smartly adapts around her size. She’s thrown across rooms, resorts to “dirty” tactics—grenades, a flamethrower, even a chef’s knife duct-taped to a pistol grip—to take down opponents twice her size.
The John Wick movies don’t just introduce “Gun Fu”—they’re like Cirque du Soleil for violence. What truly sets them apart from your average Steven Seagal–style action flick is their simplicity. The combat sequences are so well choreographed they’re often shot in long takes without rapid-fire cuts, making every blow feel raw and visceral.
If you’ve been burned by female-led spin-offs before, Ballerina succeeds where others have failed—and it brings a badass new heroine into the Wick universe while doing so.
