Red Sparrow (2018)

I got to catch this earlier this week, Spy drama, with what appeared to be notable similarities to Marvel's Black Widow and her Russian back story. Jennifer Lawrence stars as Dominika Egorova an ex-prima ballerina that is coerced by her uncle to be a part of a secret intelligence service training, Sparrow School. Ooo Russian spy school, cool right? Um, kind of.

Now I've not read the book by Jason Matthews (who is former CIA by the way) so I don't know how it compares, but I'd like to think there's a thin line of reality somewhere in there. Whether that's just in the portrayal of CIA, fine. The graze over Russian politics went over my head which is fine to me, as did the accents. I can't say I've heard a real Russian accent to clarify if Lawrence's portrayal is accurate. Plus Russia is huge there's probs alottalotta accents. 

The Sparrow School has notoriety of being a sex school. Adult students, men and women, learn how to seduce the enemy to get what they want. When our protagonist is first introduced, Matron, played by Charlotte Rampling (who reminds me of the Dean in Monsters University (2013)) explains what shes up against. You will learn how to make sacrifices, to manipulate, to fight, to identify your targets weakness and use it against them. Sounds really interesting but we don't actually get to see that training. We had a montage which is them watching porn and a couple people shooting a gun in the distance. This is heavily reliant on abrupt sex talk and nudity. Fine, I get it, it's a people thing, but man show us some of the other cool things. How do I know Dominika can wield any weapons? How do I know she has any skills whatsoever other than taking her clothes off? We see the single skill of picking a lock but otherwise, a bit of waste of spy stuff to be honest. 

The sex stuff was a bit rash because it wasn't sexy, even the intentionally sexy bits. The first 'sex' we see, is forced and it is not the only time we see someone attack our main gal. It's seen as a form of power and in no way to be personal or intimate, just a tool to get whatever it is you're after. So when they try to get sexy with Joel Edgerton, who's starting to look pretty daddy might I add, there isn't as much chemistry there as we'd like. But maybe that's the point, the brutality means that the two attractive people doing it still isn't sexy, we're too far gone for that. 

It looks alright, a lot of greys and dulled colours, inner cities and grand hotels. Many uniforms of course, set in the present the costumes isn't really much to go on. Same goes for hair, though makeup is interesting. The film does have violence, being rated a 15 here in the UK they made active decisions to discuss with the rating board to get a lower rating. There's a few fight scenes and body shots, we see a dead body after torture. Then later in the film we see the torture actually happen, though cleverly always just out of the shot until after the act. To be honest not too extreme, the sexual violence was, standard violence wasn't. 

Lawrence was alright, though it can be hard to judge acting when a character is acting. We believe she cares for her mother but the whole thing is about whether or not she's lying, who's side is she on. I think there are particular scene in which she shows herself as powerful and not just the character. Joel Edgerton was good, though comes across earnest and honest, which isn't what I would think CIA agent should be. He does show some skills and I think he's getting a good variety of roles. Jeremy Irons was good, his character arc was fun, his accent I don't really know what it was. Alright all round. 

The film is long, 2 hours 19 minutes though to be completely honest it didn't actually feel that long. There was some odd pacing, to try and keep the illusion of mystery and spies and whatnot you didn't really know when the crescendo was or what it would be. The ending was somewhat satisfying, which is what  you want from any film. 

Not bad, I'd probably leave it on the telly if I stumbled across it again. It was nice to see Lawrence interested in her work a little more than X Men Apocalypse (2016). Not completing boring but a lot of wasted potential 6/10

CINEMATES - A