The idea of ballerina assassins was first introduced in John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum, but they were a minor detail to the plot. Ballerina focuses on one of them, Eve Macarro, who is being played by Ana de Armas. It was a curious decision to make a movie about Eve since she was a footnote in that movie, but the proof is in the pudding.
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It turns out that Eve is just as capable as John Wick is at killing her opponents. Could she take John out in a fight? That’s to remain a mystery, but fans of this series can at least agree Eve’s skills are deadly. Here is how her skills stack up in Ballerina.
There will be spoilers.
7 Fight Like A Girl
Aim For The Jewels
During a training sequence at the beginning of the movie, Eve is failing her missions. That’s when Nogi tells her to turn her weaknesses into strengths, which basically translates into “Fight like a girl.” A nice knee to the family jewels sends a behemoth of a man down to his knees, and that’s not something John Wick likes to do in his fights.
It’s kind of a man code not to go for the family jewels, but in a world of assassins, anything is on the table. Eve doesn’t use methods like this often in Ballerina, but the idea of getting ahead through womanly wiles is a theme.
6 A Flexible Spider
Turning Legs Into Traps
Eve is not as imposing a character compared to John Wick because of her petite frame. This allows Eve to move quicker during confrontations and to use her legs like a second set of arms. She disorients several opponents by climbing onto them and wrapping her legs around their heads to get an advantage.
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John Wick is not foreign to using his body to suplex opponents in his fights, but it’s less elegant when he does it. If there is a Ballerina 2, Eve will assuredly be more confident in using her body as a weapon, more like all the great femme fatales of cinema.
5 Knows How To Conserve Resources
A Survival Master
After her training montage, the movie skips ahead two months, wherein it’s assumed Eve has been doing contract work for a while now. In this time skip, Eve is in a bathroom flooded with water and bodies. On her way out, she picks up weapons and takes knives back out of her opponent’s bodies. It’s a small touch to her character, but it’s a good one.
Eve would do well in a survival horror game where the theme is to conserve ammo and supplies as much as possible. For John Wick, he’s never been one to conserve supplies, although that’s because he’s often being hunted and doesn’t have a lot of time for taking back items. He is a fan of picking up weapons from enemies, though.
4 Loves Duct Tape
Where Does She Keep It On Her?
One of the oddest parts of Eve’s character is her supply of duct tape. The cult she is hunting just doesn’t have a compound. They have an entire village, which is something that elevates this society above other cults in movies. When Eve arrives, it doesn’t take long for the entire village to turn on her, and to make her fights more dynamic, she uses duct tape to stick her pistol and knife together. It’s not practical, but it does look cool.
She also uses duct tape later to strap a bomb to a guard’s mouth, which is brutal. This is a move John Wick should have picked up earlier because duct tape is a universal tool for assassins in the Ruska Roma, apparently.
3 Knows Her Way Around Explosives
Demolition Woman
Going back to explosives, Eve seemingly is a demolition expert because she uses them frequently in her fights. Her first big showcase happens in a gun shop that gets overrun by cult members. With no guns at her side, Eve finds a supply of grenades instead that she straps to her body.
It’s something unique to Ballerina, as there has never been a more bombastic fight scene with Eve lobbing grenades like they were nothing. It’s like the dream cheat code in an old-school game that gives players infinite grenades. John Wick knows his way around a grenade, but Eve took things to a new level in this movie.
2 Bending Fire To Her Will
The Fury Would Cower Before Her
Another moment of brilliance happens in the cult village when Eve discovers a flamethrower, and her reaction is, “Cool.” Flamethrowers are often some of the coolest weapons in video games and movies, like The Fury’s weapon of choice in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater or Leonardo DiCaprio’s incredible scene at the end of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
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A dueling flamethrower battle has never been done to this degree in the series before, and even though Eve probably never had training, she’s an expert. She was even smart enough to wear flame-retardant clothing, which must have been in the supply box. Would John Wick be as skilled in her situation?
1 A Better Presence
Isn’t A Mindless Killer
Overall, Eve’s best skill is her personality. John Wick can often come across as a robot or some sort of lost soul that only knows how to kill. Maybe this is because Ana de Armas is a better actor than Keanu Reeves, or maybe he plays John Wick this way to show that life has left his body.
He lost his wife, a dog she gave to him, and John Wick took countless souls as a contract killer. Eve doesn’t have that weight on her yet, besides witnessing her father’s death, and yet she can still communicate with people in a non-stoic way compared to John Wick.
- Release Date
- June 6, 2025
- Runtime
- 125 minutes
- Director
- Len Wiseman
- Writers
- Shay Hatten, Derek Kolstad
- Producers
- Basil Iwanyk, Chad Stahelski, Erica Lee
- Prequel(s)
- John Wick, John Wick: Chapter 2, John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum, John Wick: Chapter 4
- Sequel(s)
- John Wick: Chapter 4
- Franchise(s)
- John Wick
Cast
-
Ana De ArmasEve Macarro -
Anjelica HustonThe Director
- Main Genre
- Action
- Studio(s)
- Summit Entertainment, Thunder Road Films, 87Eleven Productions
- Distributor(s)
- Lionsgate
