After nearly 11 years, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to sit through the storytelling and lore-building of the “John Wick” franchise to enjoy the highly choreographed action scenes for which the series is known.

In theaters this week, “From the World of John Wick: Ballerina” — the fifth entry and the first not to be built around the titular assassin portrayed so capably by Keanu Reeves — asks nearly too much from the viewer as it tells a very simple but highly drawn-out tale as it doles out all the requisite fights, slayings and explosions.

Nearly too much.

If you’re a fan of what the “Wick”-verse has had to offer, you will get enough of it from “Ballerina,” which sees Ana de Armas front and center as a ballerina-turned-assassin.

The film — set mainly between the events of 2019’s “John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum” and its 2023 follow-up, “John Wick: Chapter 4” — also is the first of these flicks not helmed by Chad Stahelski, who serves as a producer and did direct some additional shooting. Instead, Len Wiseman (“Underworld,” “Live Free or Die Hard”) had the reins, which may help to explain what is at least a slight drop-off in quality from earlier installments.

We meet de Armas’ Eve Macarro as a young girl (Victoria Comte), when she witnesses the murder of her father (David Castañeda) by a group of assassins led by The Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne). The orphaned Eve is taken in by the Ruska Roma, the assassin training ground/ballet school run by The Director (Anjelica Huston), a character introduced in “Parabellum.”

Twelve years later, Eve is training both as a dancer and a killer and even has a run-in with John Wick — Reeves elevating a few scenes in the affair — as he visits The Director during the events of “Parabellum.” He encourages her to leave the place and, by extension, the assassin's life behind. She, however, is driven to avenge her father’s death, so that’s a nonstarter, John.

Eve’s drive for revenge also is a problem for the Ruska Roma, as The Director long has enjoyed an agreement with The Chancellor that neither’s minions will interfere with the other's. Thus, Eve leaves the joint, and with her the mildly intriguing prospect of her working both as an ender of lives and a dancer in a high-level ballet company.

Any dance training she leans on in the high-body-count second and third acts of “Ballerina” is done in the name of killing — with knives, guns and, eventually, a flamethrower.

She is, essentially, Jen Wick.

Some of the action sequences are stronger than others — Eve conducts back-to-back grenade-related killings that are undeniably cool — and you can’t help but wonder if Stahelski orchestrated more than a few of them. (Rumors of reshoots have circled the project, originally slated to come out almost exactly a year ago, but Wiseman said recently that the studio behind the movie, Lionsgate, ordered additional shots, not reshoots, with Stahelski handling them because Wiseman had fallen ill.)

The story, such as it is, culminates in the unbelievably picturesque Hallstatt, a lakeside and mountainside town in Austria. In the “Wick” reality, the snowy hamlet is home to the assassins under the leadership of The Chancellor, so Eve will have to kill a lot of people — which, of course, she does with extreme prejudice — to get to him.

Penned by Shay Hatten, who’s been with the franchise since “Parabellum,” “Ballerina” has the killings come at a breakneck pace (and surely with some broken necks) until it’s time for a little slice of dialogue, Eve and the other party inexplicably stopping to chat. Look, we’re not expecting a well-constructed drama here, but surely a bit more creativity could have been employed.

For her part, de Armas — a nominee for the best actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Marilyn Monroe in 2022’s “Blonde” — is fine but nothing more. She’s brought more personality to characters in other movies, such as 2019’s “Knives Out.” That said, she does her part to make the action sequences believable, to whatever degree action sequences in a “Wick” movie are believable.

It’s still fun to visit this world of contract killers, in which cigarette-smoking women work a switchboard as well-paying bounties roll in and a chain of hotels, The Continental, offers safe haven for assassins. (And, yes, Eve visits the New York City location, “Ballerina” giving us a little time with Ian McShane’s Winston, its manager, and the late Lance Reddick, in his last screen appearance, as Charon, the concierge.)

But it’s less fun than it used to be.

We’ll see if that changes with upcoming planned projects, none more important than an in-development fifth “John Wick.”

———

‘FROM THE WORLD OF JOHN WICK: BALLERINA’

2.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for strong/bloody violence throughout, and language)

Running time: 2:05

How to watch: In theaters June 6

———

©2025 The News-Herald (Willoughby, Ohio). Visit The News-Herald (Willoughby, Ohio) at www.news-herald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.