Loopy ballet action-comedy Pretty Lethal has just enough cartoonish Uma Thurman

Bones’ group eventually puts their differences aside and bands together some time after their bus to Budapest breaks down and they seek refuge in the sketchy Teremok Inn, whose nightclub aesthetic resembles the champagne room at Castle Dracula. Devora (Thurman), the Inn’s stern proprietor and Artyom’s mom, mostly lets her grubby employees and regulars speak for her establishment, particularly her lackey Osip (Miklós Béres) and the spoiled gangster Pasha (Tamás Szabó Sipos), son of the infamous local mobster Lothar (Michael Culkin). These guys shoot, threaten, and, in one scene, literally wring their hands with glee at the thought of hurting Bones’ seemingly vulnerable company. Sometimes the sheer extremity of these characterizations makes it seem as if the filmmakers are at war with their own playful premise, like when Osip tries to drug one of Bones’ friends and she hallucinates that her attacker has cartoonishly demonic features.

But Pretty Lethal takes a hard turn after Bones urges her fellow dancers to stop panicking like scared children and start thinking like highly-disciplined athletes. At this point, the filmmakers struggle valiantly to embrace their movie’s nature as an action showcase for leotard-wearing dancers. The highlights are mostly high enough, as when Devora takes center stage and reminds us that Thurman can steal a scene with a silly accent and a bug-eyed Norma Desmond glare.

Pretty Lethal‘s go-for-broke back half can only do so much to cast its relatively disjointed opening scenes in a gentler light. Ghoulish and confrontationally gross establishing moments featuring Osip and his pals seem like holdovers from a mid-1980s Cannon production rather than a glitzy action romp. It’s also hard to sympathize with Bones’ friends given their one-note personalities, especially given their pouty and mostly unfunny dialogue.  

Yet it’s harder still to fully dislike an odd crowd-pleaser like Pretty Lethal, which, despite that early flailing, delivers on its undemanding promise. Never mind questions about character development or tonal coherence: What matters here is how hard the filmmakers commit to their admittedly thin bit. The small risks they take throughout the last half hour or so transforms even the defining quirks of annoying characters like Princess and Grace into effective set-ups for more high-strung action. 

Condor and Avantika’s unlovable characters may never develop into effective foils for Ziegler’s lead, and their dedication to ballet is ultimately never more than a pretext for more action, but if you adjust your expectations, Pretty Lethal‘s ballerinas might deliver enough quirky, cheap thrills to keep you satisfied.

Director: Vicky Jewson
Writer: Kate Freund
Starring: Iris Apatow, Lana Condor, Millicent Simmonds, Avantika, Maddie Ziegler, Uma Thurman
Release Date: March 25, 2026 (Prime Video)