{"id":66831,"date":"2025-10-10T23:30:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T23:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/66831\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T23:30:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T23:30:08","slug":"ana-de-armas-r-rated-action-flop-is-finally-getting-the-attention-it-deserves-on-streaming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/66831\/","title":{"rendered":"Ana De Armas’ R-Rated Action Flop Is Finally Getting the Attention it Deserves on Streaming"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a series that\u2019s ostensibly about brutal, bloody vengeance and an increasingly inscrutable underworld of assassins and hoteliers, part of the magic of the John Wick<\/a> movies is how quietly personal they are for star Keanu Reeves<\/a> and series director Chad Stahelski<\/a>. Wick, and his inability to leave his life as a killer behind, is essentially a metaphor for Reeves\u2019 career, and the movies\u2019 use of well-choreographed action scenes is a tribute to Stahelski\u2019s history as a stunt performer (specifically Reeves\u2019 stunt performer on the Matrix<\/a> movies). So it would\u2019ve been completely understandable \u2014 predictable and forgivable, even \u2014 if the series\u2019 first major spin-off was a total disaster, but Len Wiseman<\/a>\u2019s From the World of John Wick: Ballerina<\/a> is borderline miraculous for how it managed to avoid that fate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ballerina, which stars Ana de Armas<\/a> as an assassin-in-training who briefly crosses paths with John Wick while on her own quest for vengeance, didn\u2019t make a John Wick-level splash at the box office when it was in theaters earlier this year, but it was a major player on the VOD charts until recently<\/a>. Now it\u2019s the top performer on Starz according to FlixPatrol<\/a>, handily beating lower-profile movies on the streamer like McVeigh<\/a>, Pretty Thing, and Flight Risk<\/a>. This is a well-deserved redemption for Ballerina, and it will hopefully help solidify the film\u2019s legacy (and the potential of future John Wick spin-offs) in the future.<\/p>\n

Is \u2018John Wick\u2019 Spin-Off \u2018Ballerina\u2019 a Secret Masterpiece?<\/p>\n

\"Ana
\n Ana de Armas as Eve in an elevator at the Continental in From the World of John Wick: Ballerina.Image via Lionsgate<\/p>\n

Ballerina has a 75% on Rotten Tomatoes<\/a>, which is lower than any of the main Wick movies, but the point is that it\u2019s better than it has any right to be, not that it\u2019s better than any of the other movies. And the reason it\u2019s so surprisingly good is that it\u2019s actually a smarter approach to the material than simply \u201ca different bankable star does John Wick stuff.\u201d The movie (featuring series regulars Ian McShane<\/a> and Lance Reddick<\/a>, plus newcomer Norman Reedus<\/a>) knows that it can\u2019t live up to exactly what John Wick does and that it will just reflect poorly on Ballerina if it tries too hard to do that, so it makes a few clever choices to sidestep any direct and unfavorable comparisons between it and the main series.<\/p>\n

Early on, when Ana de Armas\u2019 Eve is in training to become an assassin, an instructor explains to her that she\u2019ll never be able to beat the male opponent she\u2019s sparring against because he\u2019s bigger and stronger than she is. In order to win, she has to fight smarter, which could be read as the movie\u2019s philosophy about how it can compete against a regular John Wick movie \u2014 which is to say that it can\u2019t compete unless it does things its own way. Later on, Eve goes to an arms dealer for what appears to be a clich\u00e9d \u201cgetting geared up\u201d scene that initially evokes the far superior \u201cSommelier\u201d scene in John Wick: Chapter 2<\/a>, but then it quickly goes off in a different direction and becomes one of Ballerina\u2019s funniest, most memorable action sequences.<\/p>\n

Ballerina isn\u2019t proof that just anyone can make a John Wick movie, because countless pretenders (Hotel Artemis<\/a>, Gunpowder Milkshake<\/a>, Kate<\/a>) have tried and failed. It is, however, a lesson on how to make a John Wick-style movie<\/a> work, which is by playing to your strengths rather than simply emulating what Reeves and Stahelski have spent their entire careers preparing for. Also, it helps that John Wick himself shows up a few times.<\/p>\n

\"01538533_poster_w780.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Release Date<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJune 6, 2025<\/p>\n

Runtime<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t125 minutes<\/p>\n

Director<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLen Wiseman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For a series that\u2019s ostensibly about brutal, bloody vengeance and an increasingly inscrutable underworld of assassins and hoteliers,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[146,85,46,397],"class_list":["post-66831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}