June 13th, 2025

Franchises can go through enormous changes when something comes around that totally changes the game. Animation has been in an arms race in terms of stylistic choices ever since Phil Lord & Christopher Miller came out with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. We’ve seen animators continuously try to one up each other in things like The Mitchells Versus The Machines, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. Each studio has seen the change that the choices in creating the Miles Morales movie brought to animation, and have bent over backwards to prove they could not only replicate, but improve on the efforts.

A similar thing happened to action franchises after the Keanu Reeves starring vehicle John Wick came to light. Things realized they needed to have at least some of the feeling of those films. Action has more weight when the main character is exherting themselves. Cutting after every hit might make it easier to sell the hit, but it takes the audience out of the moment. And violence is aggresively captivating. Something like Bob Odenkirk’s Nobody does not exist without John Wick coming first. So it’s fun they’re getting to build out the world of assassins even more with the Ana de Armas starring film, From the World of John Wick: Ballerina.

It may be a bit of a mouth full, but it’s hard to blame the directors on a choice that was almost certainly a decision made by a marketing minded exec. Ballerina introduces a side character to the “World of John Wick” and gives her a similarly vengeful motivation. Eve (de Armas) witnesses the murder of her father by a cult of killers. It’s justifiable then that after training at the assassin school that’s LARPing as a dance academy Eve decides to get her just rewards.

While the plot is capably put together, the purpose of most action films, and Wick films even more so, is less about the conversational aspects and more about the stunt work and special effects. Director Len Wiseman manages to make every beat feel like a Wick film as Eve fights against droves and droves of assassins and cultists. And Eve feels different enough to justify the movie. She’s not just a female version of John Wick. Wick is a spectre of death, his enemies muttering “The Babayaga” to themselves as he decimates even the most skilled of assassins. Seeing a greenhorn navigate this dangerous world brings a little more tension to the gunplay sequences. And there are some great moments where Eve is put into compromising situations without weapons that throttle up the nervousness we feel for her.

There are some familiar faces as well. Lance Reddick shot his scene before passing away in 2023, and the director of the Continental New York is back being portrayed by Ian McShane. The film takes place during the events of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum for those keep score. I do have some obnoxiously nerdy questions on exactly when and how this took place? John Wick himself shows up a couple times, and realistically slightly overstays his welcome in a movie that should be about de Armas’ Eve, but it’s nothing so egregious that I want to nitpick too much.

The film captures the spirit of the world, and that was the biggest hurdle it had. De Armas sells the action, and the rage her character feels throughout the film in exactly the way a pro like her should. The World of Wick does feel more real, albeit heightened, than so many others. The hits that Eve and John take as they stumble through a universe chock full of folks trying to kill them feel felt. It’s probably the most impressive magic trick of this franchise and it’s great to see it continuing.

3.5/5