From the World of John Wick: Ballerina is suffering at the box office from an unfortunate case of girlboss fatigue. But anyone who has seen the movie knows that it actually retreats from mainstream feminism.

The movie, which cost an estimated $90 million to produce, only earned about $25 million in its opening weekend in the United States. It has since recouped its production cost but is still severely underperforming John Wick: Chapter 4.

Though the movie hails from a beloved franchise, audiences don’t seem to be excited. One critic blames the movie’s lackluster title, but maybe Hollywood’s litany of obnoxious girlboss action heroes beating up on male co-stars is the real culprit.

Ballerina, however, avoids many of the issues plaguing other female-led action movies. The movie acknowledges the biological differences between men and women and treats the franchise’s male hero with respect, signaling a retreat from the rabid feminism of many Hollywood productions.

A Quick Plot Synopsis

The bulk of Ballerina takes place between the events of John Wick: Chapter 3 and Chapter 4. Ana de Armas, who previously starred in Blade Runner 2049, Knives Out, and No Time to Die, leads as Eve Macarro.

The film begins with a lengthy backstory — entirely warranted by the introduction of a new character into an established series. Eve is the daughter of two assassins: Her father is a Ruska Roma member, and her mother belonged to an organization known as “the Cult.” When the Cult kills her father, Eve escapes and is inducted into the Ruska Roma, where she trains to be a ballerina and assassin for the next decade.

While training, Eve meets John Wick and asks him how she can become as skilled an assassin as he is. He advises her to leave the Ruska Roma while she can. She insists, as she does throughout the movie, that she chose this life.

Eve passes her final examination and begins to take contracts. Several missions later, she is attacked by an assassin who bears the same mark as the men who killed her father. She asks the Ruska Roma’s director for information about the Cult, seeking revenge for his death, but is prohibited by a truce between the Cult and the Ruska Roma.

Eve pursues the Cult anyway and finds her way to the Cult’s headquarters in the town of Hallstatt. The Cult’s chancellor, who killed Eve’s father, threatens war between the Cult and the Ruska Roma. The director promises to send John Wick to kill Eve.

In Hallstatt, Wick finds Eve but lets her live. Eve convinces him to give her 30 minutes to hunt down the chancellor. She and Wick separate. Eve successfully kills the chancellor and returns the chancellor’s granddaughter to her father, who fled the Cult.

Fight Like A Girl

During a training montage, Eve’s trainer tells her: “You will always be weaker. You will always be smaller. You want to win? Improvise. Adapt. Cheat. Fight like a girl.” In other words, the film acknowledges the biological differences between men and women — at least in word. It is implied that Eve will need to be smarter and scrappier than her opponents in order to win.

The movie forgets this as soon as the action picks up. Eve spends the rest of the movie beating up and killing both men and women. She is thrown into walls and through windows, has several grenades explode near her head, and is cut or stabbed multiple times — all with little evidence of injury or effect on her fighting capability. She makes good use of her surroundings and improvised weapons, but her fighting style is not that of a scrappy underdog. In fact, it is very similar to John Wick’s iconic gun-fu.

Eve is strong and skilled, but she’s never obnoxious about it. She never monologues about girl power or ridicules the men around her. She just does her job as an assassin.

It’s unrealistic for a woman, even a highly trained assassin, to consistently beat up larger men, but all action movies are unrealistic to some extent. The likelihood of Maverick surviving after ejecting himself from a plane traveling at Mach 10, James Bond successfully landing a corkscrew car jump, or John Wick living as long as he did in his line of work is low. A healthy suspension of disbelief is necessary to enjoy any action movie, whether the hero is male or female.

Not a Female John Wick

Many female-led sequels and spin-offs in male-led franchises make a point of humiliating and ridiculing the old male hero. Think of Rey completely overshadowing Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi, She-Hulk patronizing Bruce Banner in She-Hulk, Galadriel’s obnoxious girlbossing in The Rings of Power, and Helena Shaw punching Indiana Jones in the face in The Dial of Destiny. The stories are often accompanied by a generous dose of patriarchy-smashing feminist monologues and women playing the victim.

Ballerina avoids these pitfalls. Throughout the movie, Eve is insistent that her choices are her own. She doesn’t blame men or institutions for forcing her into the Ruska Roma or making her into an assassin. Her sense of personal responsibility is refreshing, even if her career choice is troubling. She looks up to John Wick with a sort of hero worship. She wants to be like him, not belittle him.

In one of the film’s greatest moments, Eve and Wick face off in a fight that begins with gunfire and quickly escalates to hand-to-hand combat. Eve never lands a blow on Wick. He blocks or dodges each of her hits and easily throws her to the ground. Eve is not a female John Wick, nor was she ever intended to be, per Producer Chad Stahelski and Director Len Wiseman. The Baba Yaga remains the Baba Yaga.

A Way Forward for Female Action Heroes?

The creators of Ballerina have learned a lesson that the rest of Hollywood seems to have trouble grasping. Audiences aren’t mad about female action heroes; they’re mad about obnoxious girlbosses who humiliate legacy characters and make a mockery of their franchises. There is space for male- and female-led franchises to exist alongside one another as long as female leads don’t displace or outnumber male leads.

The movie nominally acknowledges the biological differences between men and women and treats John Wick with the respect his history deserves. While I would have liked to see Eve with a scrappier fighting style or leaning more into a female archetype like the femme fatale, her character is a huge step in the right direction for Hollywood.

Audiences are tired of obnoxious girlbosses — rightly so — but this film doesn’t deserve to suffer for the missteps of previous productions. If you’re a John Wick fan and haven’t gone to see Ballerina, consider giving it a try.