In the new John Wick spinoff Ballerina, the presence of Keanu Reeves feels like a security blanket of sorts. Without a guarantee that audiences would buy into a new movie within the canon following a new protagonist,

Like Wick before her, Eve is driven by a personal vendetta: the brutal murder of her father when she was still a child by highly trained and heavily armed assassins. Winston (Ian McShane) brings her to the Ruska Roma, where Eve excels at her training as a "Kikimora," serving as an assassin or a bodyguard, as the situation requires.

Standing out as the first John Wick spin-off film is an unenviable challenge on paper—especially given the series’ hyper-stylization and unwavering association with Keanu Reeves, its beloved leading man.