Ballerina: A John Wick Story — Grace in Motion, Death in Silence

Ballerina: A John Wick Story — Grace in Motion, Death in Silence

In Ballerina, elegance meets brutality. Set in the cold, calculated underworld of assassins made famous by the John Wick franchise, this spin-off steps away from Wick’s vengeance and dives into a different kind of rage—one wrapped in tulle, fueled by grief, and executed with surgical precision.

Ana de Armas stars as Rooney, a trained ballerina whose pirouettes were always meant for more than applause. Raised in the same Ruska Roma crime family that once forged John Wick, Rooney trades slippers for silencers after her family is murdered by a covert syndicate of elite killers. Unlike Wick’s operatic chaos, Rooney’s path is quiet, methodical, and steeped in ritual. She doesn’t chase revenge in a storm of bullets—she dances her way through it, each movement choreographed to kill.

The film, directed by Len Wiseman, leans heavily into visual symmetry—snow falling gently over blood-stained ballet shoes, neon-lit back alleys mirroring grand theatres. Rooney’s discipline as a dancer parallels her cold efficiency as an assassin. Her kills aren’t loud or messy—they’re precise, beautiful, and terrifying.

Keanu Reeves returns briefly as John Wick, not to steal the show, but to remind us of the code that binds them: loyalty, debt, and consequence. Yet Ballerina is Rooney’s story. She is not the female John Wick—she is something else entirely. Less myth, more ghost. A weapon not unleashed, but sculpted.

The film is a masterclass in restraint. Where others would roar, Ballerina whispers. It doesn’t scream vengeance—it unfolds it in deliberate strokes, letting the silence say more than bullets ever could.

By the final act, Rooney isn’t just avenging her past. She’s redefining her purpose. The stage she was once trained to dance on becomes her battlefield, and her performance? Lethal.

Ballerina is not just a spin-off—it’s a deadly ballet of beauty and violence, proving that even in a world of killers, grace can be the sharpest weapon of all.