‘Pretty Lethal’ review: Ballerinas against the Hungarian crowd? Sure, why not.

What if a flock of ballerinas were trapped in a bar, where you had to fight a cruel boss to get out alive? That’s the basics Pretty Lethal, a new comedy starring Lana Condor (To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before), Millicent Simmonds (A Quiet Place), Avantika (The girls said 2024), Iris Apatow (It’s a bubble), and Maddie Ziegler, who was the center of Sia’s music videos such as “Chandelier” and “Elastic Heart.”

The plot seems like a ’70s exploitation film, where extreme feminism collides with gruesome, graphic violence. However, the actors feel that they are in line for a reboot of the Sugar & Spice or bring, youth comedy relied on witty wit and high-energy antics. As exploitation movies are widely used in emerging media trends, Pretty Lethal seems to follow in the footsteps of recent ballerina-does-violence movies, such as the horror-comedy 2024 Abigailabout a pinkie-sized vampire girl who paired her teeth with a tutu, and 2025’s Ballerinaa John Wick spinoff starring Ana de Armas. Notably, Pretty Lethal is produced by John Wick David Leitch. So, the audience can expect a kind of soft style and intense violence of that franchise.

Unfortunately, Pretty Lethal It is quite simple compared to all these points that can be inspiration. It’s not offensive or dramatic enough to go up and feel like an actor.

Pretty Lethal he feels basic.

Written by Kate Freund and directed by Vicky Lewson, Pretty Lethal It begins in a ballet studio, where a group of young American ballerinas are preparing for a major competition overseas.

Faster than they can pirouette, their personality is clear. Condor is a rich and lucky girl who feels privileged to have a main dancer. Naturally, her name is Princess. And he absolutely loathes Bones, who is poor, tough as nails, and a great dancer, so he’s played by Ziegler. Sweet, good girl Grace (Avantika) is deeply Christian and wishes that girls would not fight – and that they could find Jesus as their king and savior. Meanwhile, sisters Chloe (Simmonds) and Zoe (Apatow) struggle because Chloe, who is deaf, doesn’t like Zoe’s constant attention.

They strive to come together as a dance team. But when their bus breaks down in Hungary on the way to the tournament, the five girls and their teacher stumble upon a bar called the Teremok Inn. Inside, they find memorabilia from the owner’s (Uma Thurman) time as a ballet dancer. But the whole place, once a luxury, is stained by years of neglect, bar fights, and grudges.

It wasn’t long before a conflict with a master craftsman led to their teacher being killed in front of their eyes. Can these ballerinas put their personal problems aside and turn their art into a martial art for survival?

Pretty Lethal it has no distinct style.

There is promise at the Teremok Inn, as its interior immediately suggests a time of splendor and the possibility of something ruined. However, Lewson falls into an exhausting category of rotting vegetable color that includes mustards, magentas, and teals. This look has become annoyingly common in any action movie that tries to tap into the chic John Wick vibe (see also: Artemis Hotel).

However, more than that, even ballerina dresses are annoyingly anticipated. When they arrive, soaked to the bone from walking in the rain, a loud salesman demands that they put on dry clothes. Obviously, that means their meticulously white uniforms, complete with pointe shoes and long tutus. Now, a white outfit (like a white t-shirt) is the perfect canvas for the blood sprays that await as they clash with the dangerous Hungarian goons. But the simple design of these dresses does nothing to distinguish the girls from each other or add panache to the design of the film’s production.

These uninspired visuals don’t help the screenplay, which reads like a ’90s teen comedy. The typical archetypes of the tough girl, mean girl, nice girl, and bickering sisters are one thing, but the lack of strong dialogue is another. None of Princess’s barbs bite enough to miss. The conflict between the sisters is at a frustrating level. And halfway through, the “good girl” act gets so boring that Grace is forced into a psychedelic drug trip. There, at least we get some unexpected visual art, as the towering nutcrackers come to life to warn him to run.

But between those ideas, I wondered if the film would be more interesting if Lewson rejected the tonal approach and embraced the bolder, fuller, more saturated color palettes of films like this one. The girls said, bring, or But I am an Enthusiast. Instead of reducing the pollution of the Hungarian bar, such a palette may telegraph the possibility of violence. And to see a spray of blood in such a clear place would have been more surprising and even more amusing.

Pretty Lethal has a strong action.

Note: It takes a while to get to the ballerinas fight section of the movie. Freund tries to be realistic by making the girls scream, run, and panic for a long time before they decide to arm up and fight. However, when we finally get to this point, Pretty Lethal very sweet.

Not only that the blade in the ballet slipper becomes the perfect way to cut the enemy’s throat with the right fouetté turn. It is also that seeing one of them pull this out strengthens the confidence of others. Eventually they begin to meet, and the energy of the film ends up compounding the excitement. However, because it takes so long to get going, the final act feels chaotic. The curves it takes feel like shortcuts instead of gains. So, even when I enjoyed the bonkers action (like a bunch of ballerinas jumping from a big explosion), I felt cut off from the joy of it all.

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There is potential in the established services of Pretty Lethal, including a sequence where the girls perform ballet on stage, their once-innocent costumes covered in blood and mud. But Lewson’s technique lacks colour, mood and melody. The right song could have made this series stand out, but the simple piano is not enough to sell the underlying emotions that the explosive scene offers here. So, it’s louder than the roar of the game.

Speaking of concerts, they are everywhere. Maybe that’s the purpose, to show how different these girls are from each other. To Condor’s credit, she successfully pulls off the rom-com heroine cheeriness To All the Boys, who recreates himself as a hot mess. Ziegler, who shined through The result the opposite of Jenna Ortega, she’s tough as the tough girl under guard, but she’s at her best in the dance/fight scenes where she can rely on physical expression. As it was in 2024 Good Girls, Avantika’s role was small, but she is funny as a clueless person. Simmonds is the best of the bunch, though, able to work with teenage passion and anger, even within a small episode. Apatow struggles too much with underwritten characters, playing so earnestly that they become echoes. Thankfully, Thurman is wicked fun as the twisted former ballerina with an ax to grind.

At the end, Pretty Lethal it is okay that the movie can be played all night. But with this cast and this situation, I was definitely expecting something weird and bittersweet and very satisfying.

Pretty Lethal reviewed at the 2026 SXSW Film Festival; premieres on Prime Video on March 25.