Metacritic reviews

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.

Ballerina may not satisfy all the John Wick stalwarts, but the movie does have its own satisfying angles, thanks to two things the filmmakers do radically differently from the rest of the franchise — and one thing they take straight from the series’ heart.

If the dizzying crescendo of intricately choreographed fight scenes is the main attraction in Ballerina, it’s those occasional moments of dry humor that make it a welcome extension of the John Wick universe.

It makes for a tonally consistent movie, though one that fails to deliver on a deeper emotional level – arguably the element that elevated the franchise above its many clones. It's a shame, because the action really is brilliant, even if the plot gives you a sense of déjà vu. Whoa.

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.

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.

Her first outing is largely a rush of violent, thrilling action, entertainingly served up for the big screen, but it isn't without its problems. I just hope that if this killer gets to dance again, she's better served by a more streamlined narrative.

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.

Sans a mythology of its own, or any substantive ties into where the John Wick films go chronologically after this, Ballerina is just another 87Eleven joint.

Ana de Armas stars as a new, lethally dull trainee assassin, Keanu Reeves makes an emergency cameo, and the film is an absolute stinker.