The First Ballerina Reactions Are All Saying The Same Thing (And There's A Reason For That)

Update: Writer Matt Goldberg has published the following post on Bluesky: "Just spoke with a rep at Brigade, a PR firm working with Lionsgate, who acknowledged that 'enthusiasm' was the wrong word to use for the social embargo and that they meant to stress more the 'spoiler-free' aspect. Do with that what you will." Our original article continues below.

"Ballerina," the fifth official film in the "John Wick" saga, is two weeks out from release, which means the gun-fu faithful are itching to find out how Ana de Armas measures up to Keanu Reeves as a high-caliber badass assassin. De Armas solidified her action bona fides as the deadly Cuban secret agent Paloma in "No Time to Die," and did nothing to suggest her sleek lethality was a fluke in the Russo Brothers' distracted-viewing product "The Gray Man," so it won't qualify as a revelation if she aces this assignment.

After all, she's in great hands. The 87North Productions team has yet to make a less-than-invigorating "John Wick" installment. Though they're tempting fate by handing the directorial reins of "Ballerina" over to "Underworld" creator Len Wiseman, who has never made a good movie, he'll likely be working within the house style. I don't want to call "Ballerina" a sure thing, but it feels like this crew would have to screw up in unprecedented-for-them fashion to deliver a lousy movie.

As to whether they've made a film worthy of a trip to your local movie theater, I'm afraid the below social media reactions aren't going to provide much insight. This is because Lionsgate has placed an unusual restriction on what critics and influencers can post. Per an email they sent to media outlets:

"We encourage spoiler-free enthusiasm across social starting May 22 at 1pm PT/4pm ET. If you are planning to review the film, critical social sentiment and formal reviews are embargoed until Wednesday, June 4 at 3pm PT/6pm ET."

In other words, everything you're about to read is positive by design. Now, some of my /Film colleagues have seen "Ballerina," and they liked it. It sounds like it should get its share of decent reviews. But Lionsgate is attempting to engineer consensus here. It's wildly dishonest and disrespects what I do for a living.  

In any event, here's some spoiler-free enthusiasm for your perusing pleasure! And please stick around after that, because I've more thoughts on this nonsense as a 25-year veteran of entertainment journalism.

While acknowledging the shady circumstances of the studio's request, /Film editor Ben Pearson also wrote on Bluesky, "#Ballerina: Ana de Armas kicks so much ass in this, it makes her performance in No Time to Die look like child's play. The movie starts out pretty rough, but eventually settles in and becomes an entertaining back-to-basics revenge story with some of the most creative action scenes of the franchise."

Kaitlyn Booth also thought the film started sluggishly, writing on X (formerly Twitter), "#BallerinaMovie takes time to find its footing in the 1st act (show don't tell is all over the place), but takes off once the pieces are in place. Eve is a badass; the right amount of #JohnWick, unique/well-executed action & excellent use of unconventional weapons. Good not great."

Brian Davids of The Hollywood Reporter understood Lionsgate's assignment, writing, "#BallerinaMovie is all sorts of awesome. It's exactly what it needed to be and properly expands the John Wick universe. The action also upholds the standard set by the rest of the franchise, particularly the grenade and flamethrower sequences. Ana de Armas is perfectly cast."

The Nerds of Color were equally enthusiastic, claiming, "#BallerinaMovie is awesome! It doesn't reach the heights of @JohnWickMovie 1-4 but when it cooks it sets the screen on fire! The action's brutal and relentless! De Armas is terrific & I can't wait to be seeing more of Eve soon! Imperfect but worthy installment to the world of Wick."

And Movieweb took to X (formerly Twitter) to say, "#BallerinaMovie is a blistering action-thriller that boldly expands the #JohnWick universe, #AnaDeArmas rules the summer box office @ballerinamovie."

Now for my sermon.

For well over a decade, it has been the film industry norm to allow critics the opportunity to post their initial reactions to major film releases via social media. Marvel Studios was one of the first companies to encourage this because, once they got their commercial footing in 2011 with "Thor" and "Captain America: The First Avenger," they were confident that the most prominent "geek" voices online would rave over their crowd-pleasing output. But there were no restrictions placed on what these critics could say, and no one got in trouble for speaking their mind if a film didn't quite hit for them (I was the West Coast Editor for Ain't It Cool News at the time, and Marvel continued to invite me to set visits and screenings after I was meh on "Thor" and "Iron Man 2").

In time, studio publicists sought to control the tenor of these reactions by asking critics not to reveal any plot details in our social media posts; this left us issuing what typically amounted to a blurb (I did this numerous times because I genuinely liked the movies). Soon after, they grew more selective with invites to early screenings of their big-budget fare. They singled out writers who value access over giving their readers honest reactions. And when influencers became social media celebrities, they invited this cohort to the early reaction party as well.

I am anything but proud to say I played a pivotal role in this evolution of movie reviewing, and wince when I see social media light up with irrational enthusiasm over a mid superhero flick or a perfectly okay sequel like "Gladiator II." Who's being served here? Not the average moviegoer, who, unlike the hype merchants, will be shelling out admission to see these films. This goes double for viewers who dig the opening weekend experience, and, thus, buy their tickets in advance. So it's troubling to see Lionsgate attempting to introduce a new norm today by embargoing social media posts from critics that are, y'know, critical.

Rigging the game to this degree, so that all moviegoers see on social media is a flood of uncritical excitement, is wrong. Then again, in some ways, everything old and awful is new and awful again. Back in the ancient days of dead-tree newspapers and magazines, studios would deck out print ads for upcoming movies with raves from junket reporters (who were happy to take free flights to New York City and Los Angeles, where they were put up in ritzy hotels like the Four Seasons and the Waldorf Astoria). This feels different, though, because they're telling critics and reporters who opine in good faith that they can't join the chorus of early reactions, which drives clicks to websites that aren't in the bag for every major studio release. This is 100% pure publicity for Lionsgate, and it stinks.