Movie Review Highlights Bundle (2025) #1

In this collection of review highlights, we’ll explore the year 2025 where the highly renowned John Wick franchise gets its first big screen spinoff alongside a possession-horror movie that rises above many in its sub genre thanks to the direction from a promising pair of filmmakers slowly making a name for themselves.

1. From The World of John Wick: Ballerina

Rating: 8/10 

Minor Positives:

-Set Design

-Creative Visual Direction

1. A zooming out pan up shot of the protagonist driving away from an offscreen brutal action scene (revealed by corpses in the road) leads to her getting crashed into by another car in the distance pushing her right back to the scene. This is brilliantly by the cinematography as the camera tilts back down to her as she's being dragged back to the original shot by the other car in a shootout. It's honestly one of the coolest shots of the franchise. 

2. There's a cool shot of John Wick on the floor shooting at multiple enemies and the camera shifts and adjusts to follow the person that he's aiming at before he shoots them.

-Character Writing Honors Previous Movies

1. Ballerina utilizes John Wick in a manner that one would hope for by making him feel mythical in presence (by how characters react to him) and highly efficient in action. I loved the fact that even our protagonist couldn't defeat him once he was ordered to kill her and that the only way she made it out alive was because he allowed it through mercy. This was a great way to honor the character's established legendary legacy. 

-World Building

1.  The new cult faction introduced added an interesting layer to the world of John Wick by establishing that there are dangerous people who do not fall into the strict ruling system that we've seen throughout the franchise amongst the assassins. 

-Solid Enough Storytelling Elements

1. An improvement from the storytelling of the John Wick sequels as this spinoff acts as a personal revenge story inserted with a sense of adventure due to the new villain compound setting, expected thriller elements, and engaging enough plot twists surrounding the villain’s connection to the protagonist. There's also the use of John Wick that I thought worked well having him as both a mythical character of sorts as well as a brief antagonist turned ally for our new lead. 

Major Positives:

-Strong Production Values (CGI & Practical FX)

-Strong Cinematic Direction

-Highly Entertaining Action

Minor Negatives:

-Lacking In Dramatic Impact

1. Although I do strongly believe that the storytelling here is stronger than the John Wick sequels, and has all the necessary narrative ingredients for us to feel connected to Eve's goals, I didn't think the big familial twist with the villain was impactful enough. The writing is there on the page, but I believe the execution could have been stronger when it came to the big origin story revelation surrounding her and this mysterious cult. I think there should have been a stronger emotionally weighty confrontation especially for the sister reveal. The same can be said for the final confrontation between Eve and her grandfather. 

Major Negatives: 

-Terrible Performance

1. Keanu Reeves as John Wick

This one hurts to say considering that John Wick is one of my new favorite characters in cinema, and I personally love Keanu Reeves in the role. Unfortunately, I feel that his performance has taken a massive nosedive from passable enough in the first movie to downright awful in these last two movies. He feels either like an intentional caricature of himself due to the character's pop culture attention or like a lazy bit of effort in the acting as the focus lies heavily on the action stunt work. Whatever the reason may be, it's definitely not working for me and has now become a distraction that I'm scratching my head over considering how perfectly fine he was in the earlier entries.

2. Bring Her Back

Rating: 9/10 

Minor Positives:

-Overall Solid Production Values (CGI & Practical FX)

-Horror Visual Direction

1. Whether it's disturbing found footage occult activities, a possessed child with a gradually mutilated body, or people getting brutally victimized, Bring Her Back doesn't hold back on its shock value imagery. There are a few moments where I genuinely gasped by what I was witnessing such as a child peeling back their own skin or an elderly woman getting smashed in by a car. I think of all of the horror movies that I've seen in recent years, this one got the most reactions out of me in terms of some of the visuals that were done. 

-Strong Cast Overall

1. Everyone puts in a pretty solid performance here which is high praise for any horror movie nowadays (considering the genre's historical track record when it comes to acting). The highlight however comes with Sally Hawkins who does a pretty excellent job at playing the "quirky but cool adoptive parent with a dark sinister secret" portraying all of the emotional beats necessary. I completely bought her every step of the way as both a genuinely nurturing mother figure that so happens to be mentally unhinged in addition to being a deeply hurt and desperate parent who simply wants to bring her daughter back by any means necessary. I also wanna give a spotlight to Sora Wong who knocks it out of the park as this innocent and highly vulnerable kid who's simply trying to move forward after a recent tragedy but is unfortunately trapped in the middle of a destructive agenda.

-Solid Villain

1. Laura

Sally Hawkins as Laura, the adoptive parent who's secretly dipping into occultism to resurrect her daughter by essentially killing other children, is one of the most narratively layered villains in the history of the genre. Is what she's doing absolutely evil? Absolutely, without a second thought, this is someone that needs to be locked up for life for selfishly putting children in mortal danger for her own controversial motives. That being said, the way that Hawkins particularly plays the character in addition to the direction of the character, Laura is deliciously deceptive and manipulative in how she handles our young leads while having the most nurturing and charming "cool and quirky mom" surface. 

She's also given a genuinely strong emotional center surrounding the pain of her lost where we have scenes of her remembering her daughter and desperately committing to the twisted task of demonic possession aiding. This isn't a horror movie villain out for blood or power as we've seen with the majority of this genre's cinematic history. Instead, Laura is a grieving parent who decided that moving forward and finding healthy ways to cope with her daughter's death was simply not an option while opting instead to go down a dark supernatural route to bring her back. It's a fascinating villain (especially considering the fact that she's supposed to be a well established counselor) due to the relatability of a desperate parent but also the mystery surrounding her supernatural resources. 

-Solid Enough Storytelling Elements

1. I thought the overall idea of these young kids who just lost their father figure now moving into an evil manipulative foster environment was decent on its own. However, once the reveal is established that their new foster mom is actually gradually working her way towards killing them while simultaneously bringing her dead daughter back through occultism was fascinating. Add in the fact that you have this disturbing looking child that just wanders around the movie almost aimlessly being first presented as a mentally ill child of Laura (the foster mother) but is revealed later to actually be a missing child who Laura is using as a vessel for a demon that promised to resurrect her child's soul in a new body. It's mysterious, it's messed up (especially seeing how child abuse is thematically repeated), it's a bit emotionally tragic, and it's all paced out and executed pretty well overall. 

Major Positives:

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Minor Negatives:

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Major Negatives:

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