Ballerina (2025) Review: Style Over Substance

I watched From the World of John Wick — Ballerina. I will talk about how I liked the movie in this review.

At the beginning of the review, I will tell everyone clearly that those like me who like John Wick are a very favorite movie, a very good movie and are going to watch the movie with expectations—they should leave their expectations at home and then go watch this movie.

Because, this movie has caught up. I mean, this movie could not even come close to John Wick and disappointed me very badly. Because, there are very few positive aspects.

Most of it is negative aspects. And its story is very short—it means nothing if you don't say it. Still, I will tell you a little bit. If I say more than this, it will be a revelation. So if I tell you a little bit.

Story Overview

The story is that—a little girl, whose father is killed in front of her eyes. Then that little girl goes through a training process and she grows up. This whole movie is about how he takes revenge on his father's killers after growing up.

Now if we talk about the positive aspects of the movie, there are very few positive aspects.

Positive Aspects

First of all, look & feel — since Hollywood has spent a lot of money, you can understand that. But the work has ultimately not been done.

The places where it has been shot here are nice to see. The look & feel on the big screen is nice, it gives a premiumness.

Ana de Armas' performance here is good. She tried a lot — with action, attitude, style to make the movie stand out. But it didn't last.

But her performance is quite good. For those who are fans of John Wick, there is a cameo of John here. And I didn't reveal it, because John is shown in the trailer and it is said From the World of John Wick, so John will be there.

There is John and those who like the John Wick character very much, like me, like the places where that person is, but the movie is good to watch.

And here the BGM work in this movie, especially is very good. Especially, I mean the best BGM of this movie.

The BGM was uplifting the movie in many places and uplifting the actions in many places.

Now if we come to the most important point of this movie—how is the action? The action is pretty average.

Why am I saying this? Because John Wick is a movie many years ago. Look at the level of action in that movie, and look at the actions here.

The actions are good. The choreography is well done. Ana performed well in the actions. You can understand the hard work behind them.

But the actions cannot reach the level of John. It seems that Hollywood has gone back many years. How old is John and how good are the action sequences.

The actions here are good, but they are not as fun as John Wick. So you will see neither positive nor negative aspects—just action.

Now let's come to the negative aspects. This time, it's all negative aspects.

Negative Aspects

A revenge story. When do you like to see things in a revenge story? Or when is the action in a revenge story, when do you like the actions?

When the reason behind it, or the process of showing that reason, is very good. The emotion comes out well.

That thing here is not good at all. It's a very simple story. A simple story can also be presented well, but here the simple story has been presented in a simple way.

The movie cannot attach you emotionally. The way the emotion is shown here—the emotion of the father and daughter does not work.

So how will the action work? The action seems to be meaningless action.

And the relationship between father and daughter that needed to be established, this movie fails to establish that relationship from the beginning.

Here, the core emotion—on which the movie is based—is not working. So how will the actions work?

When you see the actions, it looks like action—performing, practicing, performing—there is no life in it. There is no reason, the emotion is gone.

A story—in that story, you understand only after the first half where the movie is going and what will happen at the end.

There are no such twists and turns at the end. There are no such high-high moments at the end.

You cannot say things like, “Bhai, what made the climax” or “The climax was heavy, it was fun to watch again”—this is something you can’t say.

Emotion—meaning missing. The writing here is not good. The writing is very loose and the writing could not be brought out at all.

Another problematic aspect of this movie is that it tries to show chemistry with John Wick and this heroine.

But when will the chemistry work? When I establish the chemistry in advance.

John is in two, not three scenes. In them, they showed the chemistry so well that the chemistry doesn't work at all.

It seems like John came, did fan service, and then left. There's no more work.

What did he come to do? He's such a good character in the screenplay—he should have some place in the screenplay—but he's not here.

He's here just to serve the fan—you can understand that. There's a lot of coercion, an attempt to show chemistry that doesn't come through at all.

If the emotion had been well expressed here, if this simple story had been well presented—if the story had been shaped with good twists and turns or emotions, if it had been well written, and if John's cameo had been well used—then this movie would have been very good.

Final Verdict

But this movie is very boring, it has become an average movie for me. And please, no one should go to see this movie with expectations that it is not even close to John Wick. Then you will be very disappointed, like me.

This was the review of Ballerina.

Those who have already seen it and how you liked it—comment.

Those who haven't seen it—go and see it. Don't forget to leave a review.