Red Sparrow (2018) - Movie Review

Monday, June 11, 2018

poster for Red Sparrow (2018)

Ballerina Dominika Egorova is recruited to 'Sparrow School,' a Russian intelligence service where she is forced to use her body as a weapon. Her first mission, targeting a C.I.A. agent, threatens to unravel the security of both nations. (IMDB)
Rating: R
Runtime: 2 hours 20 minutes
Genre(s): Action, Drama, Thriller
Released: March 2, 2018
Directed by: Francis Lawrence
Written by: Justin Haythe (screenplay by), Jason Matthews(based upon the book by)
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts

This was an "I want to watch something, but not any of the 30+ movies I have saved in my Netflix queue" movie choice. I did remember being mildly intrigued by the trailers when I first saw them, but I did not have any real expectations on if it would be good or not.

It felt very long to me. There would be extended periods of nothing really happening and then wham bam we have some sort of weird sex stuff or a small torture/fight scene, only to go back to another period of blahness. Overall, I just never felt myself being drawn into the story (which wasn't horrible) or caring about any of the characters. I was also very disappointed by Lawrence's performance. She is absolutely capable of amazing acting that feels real, but in Red Sparrow, she just seemed bored the entire movie, regardless of who she was interacting with. I assume she was trying to pull off being "cold" and it just did not work for me.

I did find it interesting how they used the moments of gore and sex in the film though. It was never "over the top" or glorified and instead was very much just matter of fact. We do not see much of it, which actually made some of the scenes more intense. The ending was also very interesting, but because of how overall monotonous the rest of the film was, it just felt underwhelming.

Rating: ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ 6/10


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