There’s a moment in “John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum” where our aggrieved assassin goes to visit his adoptive mother figure, The Director (Angelica Huston) at the Tarkovsky Theater, where she commands the training of ballerinas and the assassins of the Ruska Roma tribe, of which John Wick was once a member. He pleads for the Director’s help while in the background, the ballerina dancing on stage collapses, her sagging shoulders inked with an elaborate tattoo. It’s an evocative image, conjuring up the idea of a delicate but powerful female warrior, a dancer who wields weapons with grace. Ballet is a brutal, bloody endeavor, after all.

From that scene has now sprung a “John Wick” spinoff, the ungracefully titled “From the World of John Wick: Ballerina.” From the jump, "Ballerina" has a lot going for it, thanks to the groundwork that has been already laid in the franchise. There’s the elaborately constructed world of the first four "Wick" films that detail a sprawling underground global network of killers-for-hire who congregate at the international locations of The Continental Hotel. There’s the distinct look and feel, a kind of darkly Gothic maximalist modernism, contrasting neon, shadows and smoke. There’s of course the tireless work of 87Eleven Entertainment, the action design company helmed by "Wick" director and "Ballerina" producer Chad Stahelski (and filmmaker David Leitch), responsible for the incredible fight sequences. It’s a stage on which any performer could shine.

Oscar-nominated star Ana de Armas steps into the toe shoes of the title role, and we already know she can manage a gown and a gun, thanks to her scene stealing in the 2019 James Bond movie “No Time to Die.” With all these elements in place, "Ballerina" should be able to receive a standing ovation, but alas, this "Wick" extension remains frustratingly muddled and dramatically inert. With Len Wiseman in the director’s chair, the extreme hyper-violence loses the spiritual transcendence that Stahelski managed to imbue into his work. Shay Hatten’s script doesn’t communicate the central character or her motivations well, and de Armas — who is feisty, scrappy and fun to watch — doesn’t convey the kind of sorrowful burden of vengeance that Reeves did so beautifully as John Wick.

There is a big difference in the journeys that John Wick and Eve Macarro (de Armas) have to undertake; he’s at the end of his career, desperate to get out, while she’s just starting hers, determined to make her mark. As a girl (Victoria Comte), she witnessed the death of her father (David Castañeda) at the hands of a group commanded by the mysterious Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne). Orphaned, Eve finds a home, and training, under the Ruska Roma, alternating pirouettes and pistols. On one of her first jobs, she sees a distinctive scar on one of her victim’s wrists, the same as on the men who killed her father, which sends her on a hunt to track down his murderers.

Various characters keep insisting this group is a “cult,” and we’re supposed to believe that because that’s what we're told — but never shown. They say it’s a cult because no one can leave, but by the time she arrives in a snowy German alpine village where they’re headquartered, there’s nothing “cultish” about it. The place just seems to be a charming pastoral town inhabited entirely by stunt people in tactical gear and mountain wear. If this is a cult, wouldn’t the Ruska Roma, or any other faction that sits at the High Table be considered one as well?

Therein lies the problem with "Ballerina," and honestly a lot of the Wick lore — it’s a vast, elaborate web, but elements of it are rarely well-established. The scripts seem to start with the fight sequences — e.g., Eve with a samurai sword, Eve with a flamethrower, Eve in a kitchen, Eve in a nightclub — and work backwards from there, and that is especially stark in "Ballerina." The fight sequences are spectacular, to be sure, and designed to show how she leverages her ingenuity to fight dirty against men twice her size, which is why such a tiny dancer can plow through so many fighters.

But we don’t understand Eve that well, because her vengeance quest hasn’t been emotionally established the way John’s was. She seems determined to excel as a Ruska Roma for some reason and then abruptly pivots to find her father’s killers. She wants to save a child from the assassin cult without entirely considering that she herself was raised in one. If we’re being generous, the young Eve is still working out some things about her own life choices, and doesn’t have the wisdom that age and experience can bring.

Without a center of gravity as compelling and haunted as Reeves to maintain the emotional centrifuge, "Ballerina" twirls beautifully — but aimlessly — before spinning itself out.

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'FROM THE WORLD OF JOHN WICK: BALLERINA'

2 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

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