Red Sparrow

Going in: I heard that it was overreaching and bad accents and overall a blah movie. I'm thinking it'll be a 5 and then a 6.

Popcorn: 7/10. It's nice to be surprised. I might see it one more time if someone else wants to go. I might rent it. Usually, for R-rated movies, it's either my wife or my middle son (oldest in the house) that I'm going to watch it with. He doesn't like a lot of sexuality and I'm not sure my wife would like it. But it's still a pretty good story and I'd like to see it again to see if it really transpired the way I thought it did (not in a confusing way, but a "wow, now I see what was happening" type of way).

Art: 7.5/10. Good acting from Lawrence and a solid story. It was entertaining if you can stomach the sexuality and some pretty violent scenes.

Acting: 2/3. Jennifer Lawrence was pretty good. I know what they were talking about in accents, but they don't mix it that much so you learn early on that it's going to be English with Russian accents. Aside from JLaw though, there wasn't much subtlety. This makes sense because her character is pulling the weight of the movie.

Music: 1/2. I went back and forth on this. There's one piece of music they use thematically and it's introduced pretty late in the game. It's effective. But, on the other hand, there wasn't much else.

Cinematography: 1/2. The camera work wasn't beautiful and in a couple of shots, it was easy to tell they were using a long lens. But it wasn't taking me out of the movie either.

Art Department: 2/2. I'm giving props to the production design. Some of the rooms they had were well done and showed you kind of a story on its own. Costume/hair/makeup was all good.

Editing: 1/2. Nothing took me out of the movie, but nothing really shined either. I actually may start reserving an extra point for the editing but ramping it up to 2/2 if I don't notice anything.

Story: 4/4. Whew. There wasn't much of a relevant theme or anything applicable to today's society. But they tied up the subplots nicely and in a way that served the greater story. I kept expecting one person to be something but then at the end, he was but not by his own design. I will say that not much was left to coincidence. I believe the story was done right. I will say that I'd like a second viewing so I can see the pieces put together knowing the end.

Directing: 2/3. The story was really good and one actor did very well. But I didn't see much else that really elevated the movie.

Production: 1/2. I think it was a good movie with the right team. But the trailers (retrospectively) kind of upset me. They led me on to think it was something bigger. There was one element that I hadn't figured out but the rest was pretty obvious.