| Lionsgate | Release Date: June 6, 2025 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
22
Mixed:
24
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews
Jun 9, 2025
Of course, Ballerina is not deeply cerebral cinema; rather, it’s goofy fun, but the filmmakers have elevated violence to a fine art, and it does play like a ballet in the elegant precision and breathtaking physicality of the performances. Enjoy it for what it is, and buckle up for an intense thrill ride.
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Jun 4, 2025
It’s a spinoff that knows why the John Wick series has been so successful, and both effectively follows the rules while adding to the ever expanding world. While it takes a good portion of its screentime to find confident footing, when the second half gets moving, the energy is undeniable as Ballerina becomes one funny, bloody and creative fight scene after another. I’m hoping for an encore.
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Jun 4, 2025
A cluttered mess with a boring storyline but the action is often amazing, and there’s a genuine sense of humor to all its weird duels to the death. That’s something that’s been absent from the self-serious John Wick movies for far too long — an acknowledgement of their own wackiness.
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ColliderJun 4, 2025
Ballerina gets off to a shaky start that almost feels like it misunderstands what has made the John Wick series so much fun for so long. Yet once the absurdity of the action takes hold, and Ana de Armas gets to prove herself as a fitting potential heir to this franchise, Ballerina captures the blunt, chaotic action that this series thrives on.
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Jun 4, 2025
The Film VerdictJun 4, 2025
One imagines screenwriter Shay Hatten (Rebel Moon) spinning a big Wheel of Weapons that would land on “hand grenades” or “flame-thrower” or “dishware,” leading him to craft novel ways for de Armas to implement these deadly items. The fight scenes are all Ballerina has going for it, but they’re frequent, varied, and clever enough to make watching the film a worthy summer pastime.
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IndieWireJun 4, 2025
Jun 4, 2025
Exploiting a mere sliver of story from John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, Ballerina concocts an especially dull origin story for an ancillary piece of Wickian lore.
Jun 4, 2025
Ballerina is a worthy entry in the “John Wick” canon, though I say that as someone who doesn’t think the “John Wick” canon is all that. By the end, Ana de Armas has proved that fighting like a girl and fighting like a guy need not be appreciably different, especially if they’re all fighting like a video game.
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The GuardianJun 4, 2025
Four John Wick films with Keanu fetishising his guns and sporting his increasingly werewolfy facial hair have been increasingly heavy going but now de Armas mixes things up and she is a smart screen presence. As for the ballet, the emphasis is on Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake; nothing wrong with that, of course, but if the Ballerina sub-franchise continues, let’s hope that different works are chosen and we see de Armas actually getting out there on stage in a tutu as opposed to simply racking up the kills.
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The IndependentJun 4, 2025
It does, in its DNA, certainly feel like a part of the Wickiverse, even if Reeves’s inevitable cameo feels forced. And while it doesn’t add much depth to the world, it at least gives credence to the amusing suggestion that these films do, in fact, take place in an alternate dimension where every person on the planet is a professional assassin.
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Jun 6, 2025
The pulse-pounding, gag-heavy climax of Ballerina, meanwhile, attempts to cover up the fact that the film is only truly redeemable in the action-laden third act, after a clumsy and disjointed 70 minutes of paper thin revenge plot theatrics, growled out by actors of an embarrassingly high pedigree.
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Jun 4, 2025
At its best, this tale of a young female assassin seeking vengeance and wreaking havoc is one more chance to see expertly choreographed mayhem. At its worst, it plays like a Wick-ipedia sub-entry ambitiously pumped up to main-event status. Let’s just say the balance tilts toward the latter more than you’d like.
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