Ballerina, set in the world of ‘John Wick’, is on the whole a solid if not groundbreaking addition to the franchise. Keanu Reeves appears in what amounts to little more than a cameo, clearing the stage for Ana de Armas to take centre spotlight as Eve, an orphan turned assassin who trains at a covert ballet academy. The premise inevitably recalls Bridget Fonda in ‘The Assassin’ over thirty years earlier – an echo heightened by Gabriel Byrne’s presence. In the earlier film he played Fonda’s kindly mentor; here he is Eve’s nemesis, having murdered her father, the act that sets her on a path of vengeance.

Angelica Huston presides as the steely director of the Academy, disapproving of Eve’s personal vendetta. Yet the film knowingly plays with the tropes that have made the ‘John Wick’ series so enduring: the binary of ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ assassins, the murky rules of their underworld, and the lone killer driven by something more than money. Eve may be contracted to kill, but she is guided by conscience and by the emotional scar of losing a parent.

The film doesn’t probe too deeply, but it does raise interesting parallels between the rigours of ballet and the discipline of martial-arts training – both requiring precision, grace, and absolute control over life-or-death stakes. At its best, ‘Ballerina’ uses that tension to give Eve’s journey a distinctive texture.

On the downside, the movie suffers from an overabundance of faceless villains who exist largely to be dispatched in waves of balletic gunfire. Heads explode, blood sprays, and buildings fill with disposable henchmen. Still, there’s an undeniable efficiency in the way the action is staged, and Eve’s David-versus-Goliath ingenuity gives the film its pulse.

‘Ballerina’ may not reach the operatic heights of the ‘John Wick’ saga, but as a spin-off it delivers a satisfying mix of spectacle, mythology, and Ana de Armas’s star power.