Red Sparrow
I’ll be honest and say that I really don’t like Jennifer Lawrence. I don’t understand why she’s the highest-paid actress in the world, because to be frank, there are many, many more actress out their that can act circles around her. But I went into Red Sparrow with some excited anticipation. I was hoping to see Jennifer Lawrence make the transition like Liam Neeson in Taken or Charlize Theron in Atomic Blonde, but alas she stayed the same old dependable and boring J-Law as she is in all of her films.
Except in Red Sparrow we get to see her tits. So if that’s all you want, you’ll probably still be disappointing, but hey, you’ll get what you paid for.
The first issue with Red Sparrow is that it takes far too much tome setting up an unnecessary back story. All the ballerina shit and sick mum is really unnecessary. In-fact the first 30-40 minutes could have probably been re-cut into a 10 minute montage and had more impact.
The next problem is that whilst Red Sparrow feels like it’s wanting to empower women in a male dominated society, all we get is a cardboard cut out J-Law refusing to play by the rules yet somehow staying alive, and a bunch of scenes at whore school where women are told that their bodies belong to the state and that the humanizing acts forced upon them is for the good of mother Russia. It detracts from any kind of empowerment message and frankly isn’t pleasant to watch.
When the film finally kicks into gear it becomes a fairly decent spy thriller with a nice twist. But it could have been so much better if J-Law wasn’t in it. Hell, Mary-Louise Parker does a better job of acting her bit part than J-Law ever manages in all her screen time.
So there you have it. Red Sparrow turns into a fairly decent spy thriller if you arrive about 30 minutes late and don’t mind horribly fake Russian accents and two dimensional J-Law acting.
Rating: R16 Graphic violence, sexual violence, offensive language, sex scenes & nudity.
FILMGUIDE rating:
