0/10 недостаточно Джереми Айронс  : (

хорошо, после уничтожения, я не думаю, что будет фильм, который будет также сложно говорить о, по крайней мере, на некоторое время. Тогда я решил посмотреть этот фильм, а не веяние времени.

*Вздох*

Бога помочь мне…давайте начнем.

Режиссер Голодные игры: Mockingjay директора и снималась Katniss Everdeen, Красный Воробей, в основном, Черная Вдова происхождения история если Чудо, guts вывезти все каратэ и заменить его насилия и сексуальности, то уровень превосходит, Deadpool”.

Dominika Егорова – еще один из тех российских имен, я чувствую, будто я делаю языком twister – это балерина звезды, страдает от тяжелого увечья. Затем ее дядя удлиняет руку, приняв ее, чтобы шлюха школа и назначение ее на миссии проникновения агентом ЦРУ его тело и разум.

…Теперь, когда я подвел его, этот фильм в помещении было много еще тупее, чем я помню.

…fyi, that’s all translator Russian, so it’s probably all borsht.

0/10 not enough Jeremy Irons  : (

Well, after Annihilation, I didn’t think there would be a film that would be as difficult to talk about, at least for a while. Then I chose to see this film instead of A Wrinkle in Time.

*sigh*

God help me…let’s begin.

Directed by the Hunger Games: Mockingjay director and starring Katniss Everdeen, Red Sparrow is basically Black Widow’s origin story if Marvel had the guts to take out all the karate and replace it with violence and sexuality levels somehow surpassing that of Deadpool.

Dominika Egorova – another one of those Russian names that make me feel like I’m doing a tongue twister – is a ballerina star that suffers a crippling injury. Then her uncle extends a helping hand by taking her off to whore school and assigning her on a mission to infiltrate a CIA agent’s body and mind.

…now that I’ve summarized it, this film’s premise was a lot dumber than I remember.

That’s the point though. The fact that the government people – including Batman’s Butler and the Devil from the Ghost Rider film sequel – thought an injured ballerina would be suitable for a seductress spy and taking on a task of this gravity is stretching the imagination to the breaking point. Yet I somehow took this movie 100% seriously when I was watching it.

Perhaps it’s because the film was based on a novel by a former CIA operative, but this is a spy thriller that feels realistic. There is an atmosphere throughout the whole runtime that I can only describe as cold, which despite its premise, keep the scenes that follow it grounded.

This film takes a very different approach compared to other spy/killer films out there. It isn’t stylizing the genre, feeling like a blyad to 007, Kingsman, and all the other suave gun-toting assassins that actually get to have fun while busting heads. In fact, the main lead isn’t even a fighter, despite its Black Widow-ish premise. Throw her into a room with James Bond and I doubt she’ll make it out of there in one piece, whether physically or sexually.

Dominika’s – and this film’s – real weapon is her mind, which she conceals so well that even the audience cannot get a grasp on what her overall motivation is. Sure, she’s got a mother she has to take care of, but she can do that by either helping her uncle that looks disturbingly like Vladimir Putin or the guy that starred in Bright.

Now that I’ve had a day to mull over it, I guess her choice becomes pretty obvious, but during the viewing the film managed to fool me. Jennifer Lawrence’s deception is masterful in both the story and meta sense, as she managed to trick me into seeing another JLaw film despite her recent filmography looking like the current political state of US and Russia.

This f***-up of your perception of the film means you’re either going to miss the story entirely or be completely engrossed in it as you try and do the detective work on who she’s working for. I was on the latter, as I found the atmosphere gritty enough for me to take the film’s events seriously.

There are no particularly deep character interactions except for JLaw, who pretty much has the entire film between her legs. Her character is raw and believable, the rest of the cast is fodder for her and the mind games surrounding her. Some may hate that, I personally don’t mind it.

I’ve heard complaints of the film’s length, but length doesn’t matter as long as you are invested. I suppose that does say something for the audience’s investment level on this film, but as I was personally invested throughout its runtime, it wasn’t an issue for me. I am more confused on how people can be invested in something as stretched as Blade Runner 2049, but everybody has an opinion, so don’t send a sparrow after my virginity.

But all of that isn’t a reason to be so hesitant to write a review of it.

The violence. The sheer graphic nature of the violence in this film, in both physical and sexual sense, is bound to make me as uncomfortable as I am in front of my mother after I hand her my college rejection letter.

And it’s not just the fact that there’s blood; violence can come in many forms. It can be stylized in its brutality, used for black comedy, or in case of slasher films, sprayed from a fountain to the point where it gets silly.

Red Sparrow isn’t any of the case.

It doesn’t wear its R-rating like a badge; when someone tells JLaw to strip (and believe me, that happens quite a lot in the movie), it is a perverse thing. When someone’s neck is slit or gets pummeled by a showerhead, the film doesn’t make any excuses for the brutality.

It is understandable why it’s so controversial, to say mildly. And this brings us to the central question here: when can violence be accepted in film?

Certainly not when there is little to no point in it. If someone gets beaten to the point of ryona or is raped hard onscreen, and there is nothing else said about it or built from it later in the film, then we have to make a tentative assumption that the director is a sadist. Violence should be used in a way that is more useful, not a way for the makers to put in and laugh at the audience’s reactions to it.

While I get a suspicion this is where I begin treading hostile waters, I truly believe that Red Sparrow needed its violence in it.

Again, the film doesn’t stylize, magnify, or glorify its violence. Rather, it is used in a way to establish that Russia is an absolute hell to live in, at least for JLaw’s character. A place where your mind and body belong to the state, which can treat them as tools and nothing more. The fact that there’s so many sexually uncomfortable acts being performed or the gruesome practices scattered through the film accentuate that.

(Now, I’m sure real life Russia is a lovely place in its own right; as I’ve never visited, I am not making judgement on the actual nation, so again, please don’t send a sparrow after my virginity.)

What this does is it helps establish the grounded mood that I mentioned earlier. The violence is what sets the tone for the story, and to magnify just how much of a broken character JLaw is. Which is why I was able to get myself invested despite most of the characters being so obscure for sake of the game of deception.

Look, when we see JLaw, or any woman or man for that matter, get raped onscreen, it’s never a pretty thing to watch. It’s a cheap but admittedly effective way of getting you to care for the character, moreso if they are forced to continue those antics for their line of work. That is the reason the violence doesn’t have me hating the film. Way I see it, it was used in its own effective way.

I can understand why some people hate this movie. It’s hard to understand at points, many of its characters are obscure, and unless you get a kick out of watching the main actors with 99% of their skin showing, you are going to feel unsettled. But that is what works towards the overall atmosphere, and why this feels like one of the most realistic spy thirllers I have seen despite its ludicrous premise.

Red Sparrow isn’t a pleasant film to watch. But it’s an engaging one, one that doesn’t leave me gasping with exhilaration but rather in quiet contemplation. While I will probably never watch it again, I will remember my first and only viewing as a gripping one. I don’t love it. But I appreciate every second of it.

Though I am genuinely worried for JLaw’s film choice. And you thought her heart getting ripped out by Havier Bardem was bad enough.

Final Verdict: A-