Red Sparrow

As we dive further into film in the 21st century, we find ourselves with a fair few genres that seem to have lost their place and struggle the hardest to adapt. One of these is most certainly the espionage thriller. While the bigger franchises like James Bond and Mission: Impossible seem to have it easy in stride, the lesser-known properties and one-off shoots suffer. You can either go down the period-piece, quiet thriller style, or the action-packed modern day technological orgasm. Red Sparrow manages to find itself right in the middle.

On the surface, you might see Red Sparrow as the former. It's a quiet and complicated thriller about a Russian Jennifer Lawrence finding herself trained in a program to seduce and gather information. It's even filmed in a way that mimics 70s Cold War spy thrillers. However, it's also peppered throughout with rather modern plot points and references throughout. This confusion is a telling tale for the rest of this absolute mess of a movie.

Red Sparrow is a two-and-a-half hour film where nothing happens at all, and then you get an undeserved twist at the end. That's it. I could honestly end the review here and call it a night, but I know you all want me to go into more detail, so here goes. 

The film has a slow plot that involves basic American-Russian espionage back and forth. If you're expecting some brilliant action setpieces, you will not get them. There's not even a real protagonist you feel like you should be rooting for, as the movie throws you back and forth as to which side you believe the main character is on. To make matters worse, peppered throughout are various shocking scenes involving topics such as torture and rape, which I believe were only put in there to keep things rather interesting, but with no real payoff coming from most of them.

To make matters worse, if you're hoping for some brilliant actors doing brilliant things to make up for it, you're also going to be mistaken. Everyone except for Jennifer Lawrence in this film is played up as a bland, monotone, one-note STUPID character. Even Jeremy Irons looks like he doesn't want to be there, and he's the one that could find joy from Batman v. Superman. As I pointed out though, Lawrence's character is the only one who stands out from the bunch, but her performance is really nothing special.

If, however, I could pick one thing that can be salvaged from this film, it has to be the overall aesthetic and cinematography. I previously mentioned the mid-70s Cold War feel of the film, and it's an honest compliment. The whole thing is shot with this dirty and grimy feeling, if not for cars and computers, you could pass this off as a film from the era. It feels like a true rendition of a cold, dark world that's separated on all sides, so it earns its dues there.

But cinematography is only one thing, one thing that salvages an otherwise forgettable film full of boredom and idiotic characters. I would not recommend this to anyone, I couldn't even think of a single person who would like it, and that's the truth...and why it gets a solemn 4.1/10. I usually put a closing remark here, but I can't think of anything this time, just skip this movie.