Ballerina

Grace. Vengeance. And More Neck Snaps Than Opening Night at the Met.

This movie is part of the John Wick universe, which means everyone is either a highly trained assassin, a hotel manager, or dead. Possibly all three.

Ballerina stars Ana de Armas as a professionally pirouetting vengeance machine who was raised in a secret ballet school that is somehow also a murder academy. Yes, it’s basically Center Stage if it had more landmines.

The plot (which I have not seen but have aggressively imagined) follows our tutu-clad heroine as she sets out to avenge the mysterious death of her family, friends, dog, or possibly her Wi-Fi signal. She uses her lethal choreography and graceful homicide skills to take down an endless parade of bearded men in tactical gear who apparently never learned how to dodge a flying heel kick.

There’s a moment in every fight where she pauses, just long enough to strike a ballet pose and reload. And that’s when you know somebody’s about to get Swan Lake’d right in the spleen.

She navigates a trail of fight scenes lit only by chandeliers and unresolved trauma, faces a villain who wears gloves indoors and drinks tea way too menacingly, and relives childhood recitals set to emotional EDM. At least one important conversation in Russian ends with a sword in someone’s foot.

Also, Keanu Reeves might show up as John Wick just to nod and say something like “she’s better than me,” before disappearing into a fog machine.

I give it 5 out of 5 blood-spattered toe shoes, with bonus points if there’s a scene where she spins so fast she knocks out a room full of henchmen and gets a standing ovation.