FilmSnobReviews

Title: Red Sparrow
MPAA Rating: R
Director: Francis Lawrence
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts
Runtime: 2 hr 20 mins

What It Is: Dominika Egorova (Lawrence) was a ballerina at an exclusive Russian dance company. That was until a jealous fellow dancer and her boyfriend and Dominika’s partner take her out. Following her injury and subsequent removal from the company, she’s recruited into “Sparrow School” a Russian intelligence program where the recruits use their bodies as weapons. Her first mission not only affects The Kremlin but has reciprocating circumstances in the United States as well. With help from C.I.A. agent Nate Nash (Edgerton) they’ll try to unravel it all.

What We Think: I really disliked this. Francis Lawrence’s last three films have been far too long and they’ve felt like it. Almost two and a half hours? Really? I think JLaw is okay here and she has enough sex appeal to work as the fatal femme required here. Structurally there’s not much done well and this, for me might be the worse film in Lawrence’s hit or miss filmography. I think even Constantine is better. That can’t be good. Regardless, there too much going on to try and figure out what the actual hell is going on here. It’s just too much.

Our Grade: D+, Not entertaining. Too much of a cluttered mess to actually care. Lawrence needed to run a tighter ship and give the script a few cuts here and there to have the whole thing flow better. I can’t recommend this one. It’s on Blu-Ray and DVD now and you can probably find it on Amazon and iTunes to rent as well, but maybe don’t do that. It’s too long, too confusing and overall not worth your time. It really kinda just limps to its conclusion in a truly sad way.