Red Sparrow by Francis Lawrence (2018)
After finishing Jason Matthews’ Red Sparrow, I was curious to see if and how the movie adaptation did justice to its intricate spy story. To its credit, the movie does add a bit more intrigue as well as a twist that I didn’t see coming, but in every other respect, it completely flattens and dulls the story and its characters. Director Francis Lawrence tries to elevate the movie with lots of beautifully bleak European locations (the film was largely shot in Hungary, Slovakia, and Austria as stand-ins for Russia), a somber James Newton Howard score, and a suitably frosty tone. But not even the presence of actors like Jennifer Lawrence and Jeremy Irons can save Red Sparrow from its own tepid-ness.
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