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MOVIE REVIEW: Red Sparrow

Garth Cremona (RIP)

When a Russian Ballet dancer loses her career after her leg breaks during a performance.  When she finds out that it was on purpose she enacts her revenge.  The Ballet company start to cut her benefits and support so she turns to her Uncle who is in charge of a program called The Sparrows.  She is given the option of facing the poverty of the region or going to the Sparrows and learning the art of seduction to gain information.  It’s spy program and she excels at the training while seemingly going against the rules.  Given her first assignment to follow an American Agent she soon learns that her life is owned by the State and that she must sacrifice everything to be useful and remain alive.

I watched this trailer just before Christmas, and I don’t watch many, but the comments after the screening of that trailer, online and off, were that this looks like a Black Widow origin movie.  All the indicators at that point looked like it was going to be as close to a Black Widow film that we were going to get.  With a great cast including Joel Edgerton, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Irons, Ciaran Hinds, and Matthias Schoenaerts, I honestly thought as I sat down in the Lighthouse Cinema in Dublin yesterday that I was going to see what Atomic Blonde should have been.

Sadly the two and a half hour film that we’re presented with is far from on par with Atomic Blonde, which I had some issues with.  There is about an hour that could have been cut from the film and made it a sharper product to give the cinema going audience.  Jennifer Lawrence nearly sleepwalks through most of the film and apart from a slight Russian accent there is little to no performance in her.  Joel Edgerton offers the strongest role as his American Agent who is trying to protect his sources gives a lot of depth to the film.

We should have been given more of the character that J Law plays, the dedication and determination that people talk about with her in order to become the top Ballet dancer is not really shown anywhere else in the film.  But it’s the dragging out of certain scenes and plot points to dumb down the film that hurts it the most.

There are moments of both sexual and torture porn, and I think I’ve seen enough of J Law now to last me a lifetime.  Like Dakota Johnson in the first Fifty Shades film, the only one of that series that I’ve seen, after a few moments I was ready to never see her naked flesh again.  The violence and sexual violence is a little extreme for this sort of story and those of a weak or sensitive nature will find moments during the film a little too harsh.

This is as far from a Black Widow origin movie, not that it ever was, as you can find.  The paper thin characterisation of Russian authorities is, at least to me, more insulting to the viewer.  Part of me felt that the film should have been set during the Cold War era, it could have aided the story.  So Jennifer Lawrence is taking a break from acting after this?  Well that might be for the best, it could be time to take a break, rather than taking on film after disappointing film.  Red Sparrow as a vehicle for Lawrence works better than last years Mother!  But that is not a huge selling point.

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

Director: Francis Lawrence
Writers: Justin Haythe (screenplay by), Jason Matthews (based upon the book by)
Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts & more… See full cast & crew

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Garth Cremona (RIP)
Comic book creator and movie reviewer. You can find out more at www.dublinwriter.com
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