Directed by:
Francis LawrenceScreenplay:
Justin HaytheCinematography:
Jo WillemsComposer:
James Newton HowardCast:
Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts, Jeremy Irons, Charlotte Rampling, Ciarán Hinds, Mary-Louise Parker, Nicole O'Neill, Sergei Polunin (more)VOD (3)
Plots(1)
Dominika Egorova is many things. A devoted daughter determined to protect her mother at all costs. A prima ballerina whose ferocity has pushed her body and mind to the absolute limit. A master of seductive and manipulative combat. When she suffers a career-ending injury, Dominika and her mother are facing a bleak and uncertain future. That is why she finds herself manipulated into becoming the newest recruit for Sparrow School, a secret intelligence service that trains exceptional young people like her to use their bodies and minds as weapons. After enduring the perverse and sadistic training process, she emerges as the most dangerous Sparrow the program has ever produced. Dominika must now reconcile the person she was with the power she now commands, with her own life and everyone she cares about at risk, including an American CIA agent who tries to convince her he is the only person she can trust. (20th Century Fox)
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Reviews (12)
The American take on the Russian state apparatus is compelling, delivered with respect, and most fans of gritty spy movies will find it to their liking. The secret services in Russia are portrayed as a power-hungry, hard and uncompromising hierarchy of alpha males and females, both decision-makers and enforcers; like a creeping silent force, insidious and yet mesmerizing. This is exactly what the agent, played by Jennifer Lawrence, tries to portray very ably. Another one of her bolder roles in a minimalist and quite raw film with a solid plot, a great modern "cold war" atmosphere and a couple of scenes of explicit violence. Only the hint of romance is a bit too much, but if you take it all as part of the plan, you can turn a blind eye to it. Matthias Schoenaerts is superb as always and Charlotte Rampling is to die for as a demonic teacher.
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Too bad that so many of Jennifer Lawrence’s nude selfies "leaked" online, otherwise the film could have been saved by her nude scenes, but this way I was just bored. In the role of Dominika, she once again proved that her poker face can compare with the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ben Affleck and, after his cosmetic enhancements, Mickey Rourke. The film was full of clichés, my “favorite” one being how you can easily tell that Russians are the bad guys. The chief of military must wear leather boots, and anyone who would otherwise be in doubt, is suddenly clear. If espionage went the way it was shown in the film, the world would be much more fun. My takeaway from more than two hours of boredom - ballerinas are not what they seem to be.
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In anticipation of a new Hanna or Atomic Blonde, I was richly bored for a good third of the film before I realized that the expectations might have been the problem. And yet it was as if the film had anticipated as much, and when the protagonist moves to a secret training center where, instead of spy training she's treated to a stage from The 120 Days of Sodom, she complains about it the exact same way we do. The quicker you tune in to the channel of such a slightly different (yet in some ways almost classic, canon-adherent), reflective spy film, the more forgiving you become of the film. It's not easy when Joel Edgerton simply doesn't have much acting range and Jennifer Lawrence (again) looks the whole time like someone told an inappropriate joke in front of her. However, a few fairly unique scenes, occasional explosions of unexpected violence in an otherwise pretty polished area in front of the camera, and one brutal symphony involving several sharp objects and a potato peeler at least ensure that you might not forget the film entirely. 3-4, but we have to take care of pure genre flicks, so I’m rounding up.
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Sexy Jennifer Lawrence in an erotically cool spy thriller. I definitely think that if David Fincher had been in charge (he was supposed to direct it) it would have been a bigger hit, but it's still a decent thriller that isn't afraid of nudity and blood. Jennifer Lawrence is very sexy here and shows up full frontal naked, which will please many a male eye, as will the traditionally excellent Joel Edgerton. The hard training Jennifer undergoes in Russia to become a Red Sparrow is filmed very effectively, the psychological weight and erotic tension is omnipresent. At times the 140-minute running time drags in certain sequences and some editing wouldn't hurt, but I didn't find myself downright bored. The final torture and the denouement are excellent. A solid film that avoids the mainstream thanks to its eroticism and brutality and offers an unconventional story that hasn't been in cinemas for a while. 75%
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A solid, old-school-style spy thriller. The director, Lawrence, knows what he’s doing, everything looks great and the big budget is obvious, but the pace is very slow and sometimes unnecessary twists drain the movie's power. Jennifer is appropriately stiff or even machine-like (so much that you wonder how much she’s just acting), but at the same time incredibly unattractive – nobody would want to get in her bed. The controversial nude scene really is superfluous and the movie could have done without it. Howard’s music is great. And Schoenaerts really does look a bit like Putin.
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