The Choreography of Violence in Ballerina(2025)

From its opening moments, Ballerina stages violence as a grim ballet, the film literally merges dance and death. We meet Eve “Rooney” Macarro (Ana de Armas) as a Russian ballerina turned assassin, haunted by her family’s slaughter and driven by a cold thirst for revenge. The movie treats each fight as a carefully arranged performance: the camera often dances around her, lingering on her form, the editing cuts to music-box echoes, and even the wounds on her body read like scars in a dance recital. As one critic put it, the film is “a tightrope act of brutal grace, a gunmetal fairy tale soaked in blood and muscle memory.” In other words, the director Len Wiseman and his team are very aware of the parallels between Eve’s two worlds: the rigor of ballet and the precision of killing. They use the visual language of dance – rhythm, movement, repetition, to tell a story of grief and vengeance.

The fights themselves become a choreographic language that reflects Eve’s inner turmoil. Early on, she moves stiffly and awkwardly, like “a bear cub trying to climb a tree”; later, she becomes fluid and fierce. Her blows and pirouettes carry the weight of memory. By the finale, violence has become her personal ballet, a way to express the rage and sorrow she cannot articulate in words. As one reviewer observes, she “doesn’t perform action, she embodies it,” with a “hollow-eyed intensity” and a “fragile rage” that make every strike feel deeply personal. In short, Ballerina treats its combat scenes as elaborate dance numbers, and in doing so it ties Eve’s physical battles to her emotional journey.

Visual Style and Cinematography

• Cinematic Palette

  The film’s color scheme immediately sets the tone for its dramatic fusion of beauty and brutality. Critics note that Ballerina retains the John Wick franchise’s signature “wildberry color palette” but refracts it through icy blues and muted reds. As one reviewer writes, the visuals are “washed in winter blues and muted reds”, reflecting the cold, snowy settings as well as blood-stained indoor scenes. These chilly tones contrast with splashes of warm blood and fire, highlighting the clash between Eve’s grace and the violence around her. For example, many fight scenes take place under neon club lights or in a remote snow-covered village, creating a stark tableau where Eve’s dark costume pops against blue backgrounds. Cinematographer Romain Lacourbas employs rich, stylized lighting to make each punch and parry look almost painterly.

  
  

• Framing and Movement

  Len Wiseman frequently uses wide-angle tracking shots and distant framing to capture the full arc of Eve’s motion. By pulling the camera back, we see her whole body twisting and leaping, much as we would view a ballet dancer on stage. One reviewer notes that Wiseman “captures her in wide shots, allowing the audience to see the actor’s free-flowing movements and intricate choreography.” Cinematographer Lacourbas likewise “keeps his camera at a distance so we don’t lose track of the geography” of the fight. This choice means Eve never gets accidentally framed out of the action; we can see her steps, the environment, and her enemies all at once. In the snowy third act, for instance, sweeping crane moves and wide tracking shots follow Eve as she spins around a flurry of attackers, making her strikes feel like grand ballet flourishes. By contrast, occasional close-ups (on her eyes, or on clenched fists) punctuate the sequence, mirroring a dance camera’s occasional cut to the performer’s face.

  
  

• Editing and Pacing

  The editing style shifts over the course of the film to mirror Eve’s progress. In the early scenes, the cuts are relatively quick and kinetic, a flurry of blows and cuts in a nightclub fight feel frenetic. As Brian Tallerico notes, “the first half of ‘Ballerina’ requires more patience than the second, when action does the talking and even the editing/choreography tightens up.”In other words, the movie “swings the camera” and uses quick edits in its opening fights, techniques that one critic called “tricks designed to hide mediocre fight choreography” These shaky, jump-cut sequences convey Eve’s own nervous energy and inexperience. However, as the story ramps up, the editing slows into longer takes. Late in the film, some fights unfold in real time, one continuous shot after another, giving each movement room to breathe. This contrast is intentional: early scenes feel jagged and nervous, while later ones feel controlled and forceful. In many climactic encounters, a single shot will follow Eve through a complex combo,  swing a hook, spin out of danger, deliver a kick, as if filming a single dance number. The fluid editing in these passages underscores her growing mastery, whereas the more fractured editing early on underscores her clumsy beginnings.

The Ballet of Combat: Key Fight Sequences

• First Mission – Nightclub Brawl

  Eve’s debut combat scene is staged like a dark ballet in a nightclub. She has been freshly pushed out to “collect a high-profile target”, and the choreography shows her learning on the fly. Cameras circle her as she weaves through thugs, her initial movements are jagged and uncertain – literally like “plenty of flopping and flailing”. Ever resourceful, she grabs bottles, tables, and pool cues as improvised weapons. Stunt coordinator Jackson Spidell explains this dynamic: she’s small against much bigger men, so “she’s going to beat us by cheating. By using your environment… it’s like a cat and mouse situation where Eve is just this really smart mouse.”The fight’s visual language underscores that idea: one thug pulls a chair out, and Eve pivots mid-air to kick it into an opponent. Knives and bottles are swung around like props. To our ears, the blows are a bit muffled and chaotic; the sound design initially has a raw quality. This scene establishes her style: clever and improvisational rather than raw strength.

  
  

• Instructor Showdown – “Fight Like a Girl”

  A bit later, Eve’s training pays off in a formal exercise. In the Ruska Roma academy, a hand-to-hand bout against a fellow student shows the mix of dance and combat more clearly. Her instructor curtly orders her to “fight like a girl,” and we immediately see what she means – Eve grabs low, striking a man in the groin instead of fighting toe-to-toe. The editing slows slightly to frame her nimble maneuvers: a kidney kick here, a swift elbow there. The choreography mimics a pas de deux in miniature; every kick and counter-kick looks purposefully graceful, even as bodies slam into wall-padded pillars. Even the way the camera moves is deliberate: it tracks her as if it were following a ballerina through pirouettes. Though short, this sequence is thematically charged: it’s Eve applying her wits, not brute force, a harbinger of the “strategy over strength” ethos, she’s been taught.

  
  

• Glass-Smash Skirmish (Continental / Bar)

  One especially memorable fight involves Eve and an assassin smashing plates over each other’s heads. This looks like slapstick cartoon violence turned vicious. The camera frames the combatants mid-swing; shards of glass fly in slow-motion, tinkling briefly in the soundtrack before the heavy percussion score thuds in. Amy Nicholson describes it vividly: “she and her combatant greedily grab and smash plate after plate after plate on each other’s heads. (Tyler Bates and Joel J. Richard’s percussive score pairs well with a soundscape of shattering glass.)”. Here the choreography is almost balletic in its repetition – hand reaches, smash, step back, repeat, but it’s horrifyingly brutal. The lighting is low and blue-hued, the frames are tight, making each strike feel intimate and painful. This scene fuses many of the film’s elements: we hear the echo of glass cracking, see the red blood blossoming on porcelain, and the music syncs with the rhythm of their swings. Symbolically, the plates might recall dance, but here the line is crossed, as grace becomes gore.

  
  

• Snowy Village Showdown

  The film’s most epic dance-of-death takes place in a remote, snow-covered village. Cinematically, this sequence is shot in wide, breathtaking angles to capture the choreography in full. As Eve runs through a silent street, every villager becomes a trained killer stepping in time to some deadly music. One critic raves that a fight in this snowy setting is “spectacularly entertaining, filled with the type of unexpected fight choreography and stunt work that people love from the Wick films.” In this sequence, Wiseman and cinematographer Lacourbas set up a long, fluid take: Eve kicks one man in a waltzing spin, ducks another’s punch, then slides under a third’s legs. Every move is clean and deliberate. The wintry backdrop and silence accentuate each sound, a boot crunching in snow, a bone-crunching blow. In one part, she must swing heavy steel hooks on slippery floors, almost like a ballerina using her arms as barres while pirouetting with one foot. Later, she even wields an ice skate as a knife, again blending something from the dance world (figure skating imagery) with raw combat. Here the violence is elegiac: swirling snowflakes mix with red petals of blood on the ground. This grand scene feels like watching a tragic ballet on ice, beautiful but gruesome, a final pas de deux between Eve and her fate.

  
  

• Flamethrower Duel (Train Car)

  Another stylized combat moment is Eve’s use of fire as weapon and shield. In a claustrophobic metal space, she swaps guns for a flamethrower, turning gunmen into human torches. The camera often lingers on the haze and embers, as if dancing with the flames. Cinematographically, the light flickers on her determined face. A memorable bit of choreography comes when an enemy shoots a jet of fire at her; she calmly unleashes a wall of flames at him instead, then douses it with a fire hose. Amy Nicholson highlights this moment as a symbolic reversal, “that polarity motif is more thrillingly captured when Eve fends off a flamethrower with a fire hose.” It’s almost poetic: water quenching fire, innocence extinguishing destruction, an elemental ballet. The way she moves through the flames, ducking and rolling, also feels like a choreography of survival. Even in this chaotic blaze, the editing and camera find the rhythm – quick zooms on her eyes, slow motion on backflips out of harm’s way, treating each maneuver as a beat in the music of violence.

  
  

Taken together, these sequences show Ballerina treating each fight as its own dance composition. The film’s visual style, editing, and props all align to make combat look patterned and intentional. There’s even a sly on-screen gag referencing silent film comedy: a TV in the background briefly shows Buster Keaton’s Steamboat Bill Jr., hinting at the film’s slapstick sensibility in the midst of brutality. In one scene Eve uses shattered plates; in another, ice skates become nunchakus; at one point she even gains a sword mid-fight. These flourishes underline the film’s playful yet brutal headspace: violence is part deadly craft and part performance art.

Sound Design and Music: The Rhythmic Score of Revenge

The film’s soundscape is carefully composed to reinforce that dance of death. In early fights, the Foley is intentionally “sloppier and nervous,” matching Eve’s fumbling style. Punches and kicks sound muted, like a trainee still finding her strength. But as Eve gains skill, the sounds become crisp and booming. Sound editor Luke Gibleon explains that the mixing was designed so that “as she gains experience, she gets powerful, precise, confident, and graceful… making sounds more powerful, violent, and sometimes more showy fun as she uses unique objects to fight with.” Indeed, in the plate-smashing brawl, each crack of ceramic rings out like a cymbal crash, synced to the percussive score. Tyler Bates and Joel J. Richard’s music bed adds drum hits and cello slashes on every slam of glass, making the collision almost musical. Similarly, in the snow village, ambient wind howls softly between gunshots, creating pauses in the fight’s beat. When Eve finally unleashes grenades, the explosions are mixed as massive thuds that momentarily silence the action, a dramatic rest in the violent symphony.

The musical score also doubles as a metronome for the violence. Composer Le Castle Vania’s tracks (heard in trailer soundtracks and presumably in the film) use industrial beats and strings to give a nightclub/dance vibe even during gunfights. At tense moments, we hear subtle rhythmic pulses: a heartbeat-like bass when Eve steels herself, or a surge of electronic dance beats when a fight crescendos. One of the film’s trademarks is its decision to sprinkle ballet references into the sound. Most notably, the Swan Lake theme recurs: it starts as a childish music-box tune during the opening tragedy, then haunts later scenes in more ominous arrangements. This leitmotif turns violence into a morbid ballad, linking Eve’s savage acts back to the innocence of dance. In one eerie moment, as Eve prepares to execute her revenge, only a faint piano echoes the Swan Lake melody before a brutal gunshot cuts it off.

Even ambient sound is used symbolically. Echoes and reverb make the fight in the gun shop feel cavernous and oppressive, as if every empty corner carries a threat. Cinematically, the score rarely lets you forget that Ballerina is a stylized tale: at one point a disco track plays at high volume to cover gunfire, then abruptly cuts to silence the instant of impact. Critics note how intentionally the audio cues underscore each move, one even writes that a collapsing corridor in Eve’s path feels “storyboarded by a vengeful choreographer with a death wish.” That same review praises the sound mixing of every grenade blast to “shake the earth,” matching Len Wiseman’s direction that each explosion “feel like it was shaking the earth. He wanted to feel the impact, the resonance of those explosions.”. In sum, the sound and music function like the soundtrack to a ballet, setting tempo, accentuating each motion, and turning the violence into a score you can almost dance to.

Character and Identity: Rooney/Eve’s Inner World

At the heart of this kinetic spectacle is Eve’s personal journey. Ana de Armas plays her as a mix of stoic resolve and barely contained pain. Eve rarely unloads her emotions in dialogue; instead, every exchange of blows carries subtext about her history. Her motivation is classic Wick-verse revenge: “a young woman out for vengeance against the assassins who killed her family”. But how that inner trauma manifests is unique. Early on, she trains quietly under Anjelica Huston’s Director, absorbing lessons in dance and combat. The film lets her body speak the unsaid: one reviewer notes that De Armas “has expressive eyes” and that the film “lets her stay mostly silent so its leaden lines don’t weigh down her performance.”. In practice, this means Eve snarls and widens her eyes in a way that communicates fury, even when her mouth is shut.

Physically, Eve is smaller and more delicate than her foes, a contrast the film plays up. While John Wick is often shown absorbing blows as part of a mystical trance, Eve’s fights frequently remind us of her vulnerability. Nicholson points out “it’s impressive how often men get to kick De Armas in the kidneys. Her willowy frame takes a tremendous battering as brutes slam her into tables and through walls.”We see this in close-ups: her lip might split, or a bruise bloom on her cheek. Those visuals tie into the motif of scars as narrative: the audience constantly witnesses her physical toll. In fact, stunt pro Jackson Spidell says Ana de Armas would come off set “with bumps and bruises all the time, and she wore them like a badge of honor.”The film seems to reflect that: Eve’s scars and welts become emblems of her pain and endurance. Each new wound, each bandaged finger, silently tells the story of how far she’s gone to avenge her father.

Yet even amid the fury, Eve retains a dancer’s grace. She might dodge a punch by arcing her back in a ballet-like bend, or kick out an enemy with a sweeping grand-jeté motion. The filmmakers clearly wanted to avoid making her “just a female John Wick.” Spidell explains they emphasized Eve’s inexperience: “Keanu’s been doing this kind of fight for a thousand years… whereas Eve is new to this world, so she’s going to falter.” This rings true in her character arc: we watch her transform from cautious trainee (often clutching her wounds) into a confident warrior who can spar on equal footing with seasoned killers. By the climax, De Armas “kicks ass” with a suppleness and confidence that a reviewer says reveals “a confident control of the stakes, emotion, and energy”.

De Armas’s performance itself mirrors the film’s theme. She doesn’t opt for quiet stoicism like Reeves’s Wick, but shows vulnerability. As one review quips, “de Armas always makes herself vulnerable” in contrast to Wick’s implacable demeanor. We often see Eve’s haunted eyes, or her slumped shoulders after a fight, suggesting the weight of grief. In personal moments, like when she silently stares at the broken music box Swan Lake toy, Ana de Armas looks distant, as if processing trauma. A critic notes that “when you see Wick struggle in combat… adds just enough flavor of realism,” and similarly, Eve’s struggles (and small stumbles) add to the sense that this violence is wrung out of her, not just martial skill.

Ultimately, Eve’s internal journey is more felt than spoken. The film gives her only a few lines, but shows her reacting to every setback and small victory. In her final duel with the Chancellor, she fights with the controlled fury of someone who has accepted that violence is all she has to express her love and her loss. It’s telling that in the most devastating moments, Eve does not break down into tears or monologue; instead, the camera pulls back and lets her precise blows do the talking. By film’s end, her rebellion is complete: she doesn’t just mirror John Wick’s path, she carves her own rhythm. As one writer observes, the movie “invites John Wick to the stage for one more bow,” but what we mostly see is that “Ana de Armas shines without pretending she’s replacing anyone.” In Eve’s choreography of violence, we witness her take control of her narrative in the only way she knows how.

Symbolic Motifs

• Mirrors and Reflections

  The motif of broken reflections appears explicitly at least once. Early on we see Eve’s daughter self in a shattered bathroom mirror. The frame shows Ana de Armas gazing into the shards – a literal broken image. This shot suggests her identity is fragmented. More subtly, many fight scenes occur in locations filled with reflective surfaces (windows, screens, polished floors), so that Eve often battles “herself” in a way. These mirror shots hint at the dual life she leads: the poised dancer versus the murderous assassin. By the finale, when she strides away from carnage, the camera briefly reflects her face in a puddle, merging killer and ballerina into one whole image.

  
  

• Ballet and the Swan

  Dance itself is symbolic. The music-box Swan Lake opens the film and recurs thematically. That sad, tinkling melody binds her childhood (the murdered father and the “prima ballerina” dreams) to her current revenge path. Critics explicitly link Eve to the Black Swan archetype of mythology. Amy Nicholson points out the film constantly echoes dualities (good vs evil, innocence vs vengeance), and notes it “repeats its themes ad nauseum”, but importantly “whether Eve’s inner black swan will win out over her white one is never in question.” The cinema literalizes this balance when Eve counters fire with water. In a transport shootout, a flamethrower blast (malevolence) is met by a fire-hose torrent (purification). This elemental confrontation underscores the “black swan” vengeance vs the “white swan” she might have been.

  
  

• Scars and Badges

  Physical wounds become a theme. Eve’s training leaves her bruised, bloodied, and the film emphasizes it. Whenever she catches a break (like kicking a guard in the crotch or smashing plates), the camera often cuts to a shot of her battered face or bandaged body. Stunt coordinator Spidell’s remark is telling: Ana de Armas “wore [her bruises] like a badge of honor” In the film, scars on characters carry weight. For example, one of the Chancellor’s bodyguards is literally scarred, a visual sign of past violence Each new mark on Eve’s hands or arms silently marks progress. This underlines the motif that Eve’s body itself is the ledger of her vengeance.

  
  

• Shoes and Attire

  A simple costume detail carries meaning. Unlike the stereotypical image of female action heroines in heels, Eve fights in sturdy boots. Nicholson quips “she wasn’t even forced to do it in heels. She favors sensible boots” That line speaks volumes: the film refuses to sexualize her or slow her down. Instead, her footwear resembles a soldier’s or a snow walker’s, reinforcing her grounded toughness. At the same time, subtle nods to ballet remain: her stance often resembles a dancer’s pose, and even her boots sometimes slide on the floor like dancing slippers. Costuming also signals status: the Ruska Roma Director wears opulent dresses likened to a “gilded black widow spider”, implying she weaves a dark web for Eve to dance in. Eve herself usually wears dark, form-fitting jackets, blending assassin chic with the silhouette of a tutu.

  
  

• Props as Rhythm Instruments

  Ordinary objects gain ritual weight in this choreography. The Swan Lake music box itself is a prop that recurs, its melody haunting scenes of preparation and aftermath. Grenades, pots, frying pans and ice skates become extensions of Eve’s choreography. For instance, in one fight she hurls a grenade like a discus throw, the explosion timed to a drumbeat in the score. In the third act, Eve improvises a “murder with grenades” sequence in a gunshop, the ricochet and shrapnel create their own frenetic percussion. Even background details have meaning: the film briefly shows a TV playing Buster Keaton’s Steamboat Bill Jr. during a fight, paying homage to the silent-era physical comedy that inspires some of the slapstick-like brawls (like smashing plates over heads). These props and references function like a dance company’s scenery, they set the stage and the tempo for the brutality.

Together, these motifs emphasize that Eve’s violence is not random; it is laden with history. The broken mirror and music box tug us back to her childhood loss, reminding us that her choreography of violence is both a disguise and a confession. Each symbol, from a bruise to a broken shoe heel to a fire hose, becomes a step in her silent dance of revenge.

Narrative Structure and Pacing

Ballerina’s story follows a classic revenge template, but its pacing is carefully modulated to mirror Eve’s growth. The film is set roughly between John Wick: Chapter 3 and 4, but more importantly it functions as an origin tale within that universe. The first act is spent establishing Eve’s stakes: we see her as a child (Victoria Comte) watching her father’s brutal murder under the strain of a Swan Lake music box. Winston then delivers her to the Ruska Roma’s Director for training. In these setup scenes the pacing is deliberate and somber; dialogue is sparse and functional. Not much time is wasted on subplots or other assassins’ intrigues, every scene is primarily about Eve’s preparation and pain.

As the story shifts into her first actual mission, the film “kicks in for real with a vengeance quest for the murder of her father,” in the words of one reviewer. This is the turning point: it’s when Eve steps from rehearsal into the stage of real combat. From here, the pacing accelerates. After a montage of her initial training, the movie shows her tracking down one target after another. Critics note that the narrative ramps up noticeably at this point,  “the first half requires more patience than the second, when action does the talking and even the editing/choreography tightens up.” In practice, this means that the second act is nearly wall-to-wall action. Eve crashes through The Chancellor’s empire in a montage of fists and flame, much of it shown with minimal interruptions.

By the third act, the film becomes essentially one long, extended action sequence. Practically every beat of story is delivered through combat. Len Wiseman and editor Jason Ballantine deploy quick back-to-back set pieces: a fiery ambush on a train, a frenetic fight in the snow village, a final hideout showdown. The narrative skeleton is very lean – largely “revenge for her father”, but it serves as scaffolding for the choreography. Only near the end do we see any character moment or expository exchange (Winston granting permission, John Wick’s cameo ultimatum). Even there, the emphasis remains on movement. In effect, Ballerina sacrifices subplot complexity for forward momentum. Viewers who come for story may find it thin, but those invested in the choreography won’t mind: the movie isn’t about plot twists, it’s about the momentum of Eve’s crusade.

Importantly, the pacing change also reflects Eve’s emotional state. Early scenes feel plodding she’s numb with shock or focused on drilling her skills. After she gets her first bit of vengeance (in that nightclub), we sense a fire lit under her; from then on, scenes cut more rapidly, music and hits drive forward, and she moves faster. By the climax, Eve is practically in dance-driven hyperdrive, almost giddy with fury. Thus, the narrative rhythm itself is a kind of dance chart: slow introduction, accelerating tempo, culminating in a blazing finale.

Conclusion

Ballerina may not overhaul the John Wick formula, but it uses that familiar framework to stage a unique ballet of violence. Through its visual style, editing, sound, and motifs, the film constantly connects Eve’s killing to a dancer’s discipline. Watching it felt to me like watching a tragic ballet in which the corps de ballet has all gone rogue. The wide shots let you see every arabesque and triple kick; the pounding score and snarled sound effects make each shot resonate. As one review puts it, “the violence is balletic but never weightless, it hurts. You feel it.” Indeed, by the final frame we’re left with the image of Eve standing amid ruin, breathing hard like a performer after her final bow.

In crafting fights that are as precise as any dance number, Ballerina turns violence into a language of its own. Each stunt, each whip of a skirt or spray of blood, tells us something about who Eve is and what she’s endured. In the end, even without grand dialogue, we’ve seen her story: a haunted dancer who learned to speak through fists and grenades. The choreography of her violence becomes the film’s deepest theme, a brutal grace note that transforms vengeance into art.