Top Cast
Prima ballerina Dominika Egorova faces a bleak and uncertain future after she suffers an injury that ends her career. She soon turns to Sparrow School, a secret intelligence service that trains exceptional young people to use their minds and bodies as weapons. Egorova emerges as the most dangerous Sparrow after completing the sadistic training process. As she comes to terms with her new abilities, Dominika meets a CIA agent who tries to convince her that he is the only person she can trust.
Critic Consensus
Critical reception for Red Sparrow is largely negative, with most reviewers finding the film sluggish, uninspiring, and overlong. The film's graphic content drew comparisons to torture porn rather than effective spy thriller tension, and Jennifer Lawrence's Russian accent and performance were singled out as liabilities. One reviewer praised the production values and called it a brilliant character study, but this stands as a minority opinion against a broader consensus that the film fails to generate genuine thrills or emotional engagement. Director Francis Lawrence's handling of the material was also called disappointing given his earlier work.
4 rated reviews · 2 positive · 2 negative
AI-generated summary of 5 critic reviews · may contain errors
Report inaccuracyCritic Reviews (5)
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“Director Francis Lawrence burst onto the scene with interesting titles like Constantine and I am Legend a decade ago — it's disappointing to see him tackle insipid stuff like the Hunger Games movies and now Red Sparrow.”Read full review ↗
“Technically with ace production values, the film is aesthetically mounted. Overall, the film is entertaining and is a brilliant character study of an efficient spy.”Read full review ↗
“A torture porn with the sensibility of a 50 Shades… like erotic fantasy, Red Sparrow fails to take flight as the chilling spy thriller, you'd expect it to be. Even a decent climax is unable to salvage a sluggish buildup. Jennifer Lawrence's terrible Russian accent and deadpan act, don't help either. Despite the genre and an attractive cast, the film's mind games are way too tiring and uninspiring to arouse any emotions or thrill.”Read full review ↗
“There are a couple of scenes of graphic torture and violence. Red Sparrow will leave you cold.”Read full review ↗
“Clocking in at more than two very long hours, Red Sparrow should have been shorter, simpler and a lot more entertaining.”Read full review ↗
Cast & Crew
Cast
- Jennifer Lawrence · Dominika Egorova
- Joel Edgerton · Nathaniel Nash
- Matthias Schoenaerts · Vanya Egorov
- Charlotte Rampling
- Jeremy Irons · Vladimir Korchnoi
- Ciarán Hinds · Alexei Zyuganov
- Joely Richardson · Nina Egorova
- Mary-Louise Parker · Stephanie Boucher
- Bill Camp · Marty Gable
- Douglas Hodge · Maxim Volontov
- Thekla Reuten · Marta Yelenova
- Sakina Jaffrey · Trish Forsythe
- Sergei Polunin · Konstantin
- Kristof Konrad · Ustinov
- Sasha Frolova · Anya
- Francis Lawrence
- Peter Chernin
- Steve Zaillian
- Jenno Topping
- David Ready
Director
Screenplay
Music
Cinematography
Editing
Details
- Release Date
- 2 March 2018
- Runtime
- 2h 19m
- Language
- English
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