Red Sparrow
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: March 2, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
53
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 51 Critic Reviews
Positive:
18
Mixed:
23
Negative:
10
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleFeb 27, 2018
Red Sparrow is a thoroughly entertaining movie that stays fresh and interesting for all of its two-hours-plus running time. But what kicks it into a higher level is that it’s a terrific vehicle for Jennifer Lawrence, one of the few movie stars who deserves one, who is a film star in the classic sense. Read full review
90
VarietyOwen GleibermanFeb 16, 2018
Lawrence, in this movie, shows you what true screen stardom is all about. She cues each scene to a different mood, leaving the audience in a dangling state of discovery. We’re on her side, but more than that we’re in her head. Even when (of course) we’re being played. Read full review
80
The New York TimesManohla DargisMar 1, 2018
It helps that Ms. Lawrence, like all great stars, can slip into a role as if sliding into another skin, unburdened by hesitation or self-doubt. Craft and charm are part of what she brings to this role, as well as a serviceable accent, but it’s her absolute ease and certainty that carry you through Red Sparrow. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsStephen Whitty Feb 27, 2018
People who crave a movie about a secret agent with her own sexual agency — and a mission to give male predators exactly what they deserve — are going to want front-row seats. And a sequel. Read full review
75
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallMar 1, 2018
I’m stunned by where this movie dares to go with a star like Lawrence (and female co-stars) at a time like this, nearly as much as I’m impressed by Red Sparrow’s total investment in such trashy, grindhouse affairs while maintaining a veneer of high-toned quality. Blood lust and carnality at its classiest. Guilty pleasures as charged. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMar 1, 2018
Red Sparrow is a deliciously perverse, unflinchingly violent thriller – a modern-day espionage tale that breaks with the tradition of making the spy business the purview of suave and debonair characters. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTom RussoFeb 28, 2018
A hard-R espionage thriller heavy on themes of sexual degradation and graphic, sometimes sadistic violence. Read full review
75
IndieWireEric KohnFeb 16, 2018
The elegance of Francis Lawrence’s direction, cinematographer Jo Willems’ measured camerawork, and James Newton Howard’s ominous score adheres to a familiar set of beats, but it’s the rare big Hollywood mood piece and mostly satisfying on those terms. Read full review
70
The AtlanticDavid SimsMar 2, 2018
On some of those fronts, the film wildly misfires, but for a wide studio release headlined by one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Red Sparrow is an admirably bold effort. Read full review
70
VoxEmily VanDerWerffMar 1, 2018
If Red Sparrow is a movie about the things it purports to be about, like the blurred lines around issues of consent in the espionage game, then it’s a misfire at best and horribly exploitative at worst. But as a movie about being Jennifer Lawrence, about having everyone think they understand you simply because they’re looking at you all the time, about trying to hide your real life behind ineffective filters, it’s much more compelling. Read full review
70
UproxxAmy NicholsonFeb 28, 2018
Director Francis Lawrence drains the pleasure out of seeing a pretty girl in her panties. He refuses to let us leer at Jennifer Lawrence’s long legs without a jab of shame. What’s left is cold and perverse, heat provided only by the satisfying ways Dominika out-thinks the creeps while pretending to be their “magic pussy.” Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerFeb 16, 2018
It’s about halfway between "Atomic Blonde" and a Focus Features late-summer thriller, which more or less fits the Francis Lawrence aesthetic. He brings to this material what he brought to "The Hunger Games": a sense of style that feels constrained by obligations to hit a certain number of plot points. Read full review
67
The Film StageJordan RaupFeb 16, 2018
While Red Sparrow ultimately doesn’t earn its all-consuming, grueling dourness, there are a few thrills to be had, and following the best performance of her career last fall, it’s certainly another fearless step forward for Jennifer Lawrence. Read full review
65
Vanity FairRichard LawsonMar 8, 2018
Lawrence (that’s Lawrence the director, not star Jennifer Lawrence) skirts the edges of the world of cruel, leering exploitation, but doesn’t go all the way. The film stays sober and clear-eyed, showing us all this unflinching violence not to titillate, I don’t think, but to alarm. Read full review
63
USA TodayBrian TruittMar 1, 2018
With the exception of her Russian accent, which seems more like an underwhelming audition for a Boris and Natasha cartoon, Lawrence fits the role like a new pair of pointe shoes. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonMar 1, 2018
Working from a screenplay by Justin Haythe (“Revolutionary Road”), director Francis Lawrence — who worked with Lawrence on three of the “Hunger Games” films — fails to establish much of a momentum. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreFeb 16, 2018
And as much pleasure as one gets out of Lawrence’s stone-faced pairings with the formidable Irons, Schoenaerts and Rampling, her third act duet with the dazzling Parker (of “RED”) reminds us of what this one-dimensional “Sparrow” is lacking — the spark of life. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineEd GonzalezFeb 16, 2018
The way that Dominika is at once completely transparent and at the same time impossible to read is Red Sparrow's most intriguing through line, not least of which for the way that Jennifer Lawrence makes you grasp the canny mental gymnastics that her character has to do in order for everything that she says to be at once truth and obfuscation. Read full review
60
EmpireBen TravisMar 5, 2018
With an uncompromising attitude to complex plotting and graphic content, Red Sparrow is a promising beginning to a potential new spy franchise. Just be aware of its unexpectedly barbed edges. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranMar 1, 2018
Simultaneously effective and uninspired, Red Sparrow is successful in fits and starts. A perfectly serviceable spy thriller, it inevitably leaves behind the feeling that a better film was possible than the one that made it to the screen. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMar 1, 2018
It wants to be oh-so-serious, and it never lets us forget how hard it’s trying. Read full review
60
Time OutTomris LafflyFeb 16, 2018
The movie’s most shocking feature isn’t any of its twisty plot reveals—mainly involving Dominika getting romantically mixed up with a CIA operative (Joel Edgerton)—but the exploitative brutality it rains down on Lawrence. Read full review
60
ScreenCrushMatt SingerFeb 16, 2018
Unfortunately, Red Sparrow director Francis Lawrence is no Josef von Sternberg. Like most of his previous films (Constantine, I Am Legend, the final three Hunger Games), his choices are solid but rarely surprising, and despite a twisty storyline, a great cast, and two physically compatible leads, Red Sparrow never quite gets beyond being a merely okay thriller. Read full review
60
Total FilmMatt MaytumFeb 16, 2018
A solid espionage thriller that’s lifted by its charismatic leads, Red Sparrow commits to the brutality of its subject matter, meaning it’s never easy viewing. Read full review
60
The GuardianBenjamin LeeFeb 16, 2018
It doesn’t entirely work, but there’s something about its full-throttle nastiness that lingers, and it’s refreshing to see something that exists in the studio system that possesses so many queasily perverse elements. It’s just not quite as seductive as it thinks it is. Read full review
59
Paste MagazineDom SinacolaMar 1, 2018
Lawrence (and his star, Jennifer Lawrence) want to leave no doubt that this is the lurid, infuriating stuff of the adult-minded, drenched in sophistication and pain—much like Lawrence’s dystopic vision for The Hunger Games, only anchored in the hyperreal world of the New Cold War we may be starting to realize isn’t “new” at all. Read full review
58
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerMar 2, 2018
It’s an indication of how much this film needed a bright break in all the grim oppressiveness that when Mary-Louise Parker shows up in a giddy cameo as a foul-mouthed boozer, the audience suddenly lit up with laughter. Read full review
58
ConsequenceAllison ShoemakerFeb 27, 2018
When Lawrence plays to the cheap seats, the film comes to life. When she’s the blank slate expected of a spy thriller, it falters, because it doesn’t play as though she’s concealing or deceiving. It plays as though she’s empty Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyFeb 16, 2018
Like some nefarious KGB amnesia serum, Red Sparrow mostly evaporates from your memory five minutes after you walk out of the theater. Read full review
50
ObserverRex ReedMar 8, 2018
It’s an espionage cartoon sideshow that is inarguably pointless, with occasionally entertaining moments. Color it preposterous. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Brad WheelerMar 1, 2018
In the role, Lawrence dominates. Red Sparrow is stylish and tense enough, but the writing is run-of-the-mill and the film lacks the soul of something like the Nikita movies. The watchability comes from Lawrence. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireMar 1, 2018
Ultimately, these shocking and violent sequences become repetitive and gratuitous, making Red Sparrow feel more like a cheap exercise in exploitation than a visceral tale of survival. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter TraversMar 1, 2018
A punishingly long (133 minutes), shamelessly shallow downer that makes the mistake of taking itself oh-so-seriously. Big mistake. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinMar 1, 2018
Figuring out whether someone is a double, triple, or quadruple agent isn’t a brain-teaser, it’s a brain-irritant, especially when the script is so convoluted. The novel by Jason Matthews is cleaner, without so much jumping around between the two main characters. Read full review
50
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonFeb 28, 2018
The movie’s distinguishing feature is its inclination to lurid violence. Every so often, a depraved Russian hit man shows up to murder and torture one of the characters, mostly to allow director Francis Lawrence to show yet another naked and brutalized woman splayed on a shower floor, or in a bathtub red with blood. Read full review
50
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldFeb 28, 2018
Much as I’d like to love a movie that encompasses ballet, spectacular hotel rooms, a Mary-Louise Parker drunk scene, and Rampling standing grimly in the snow like an unbreakable icicle, the movie’s focus on sexual violence against Lawrence’s character ultimately feels repellent. Read full review
50
Washington PostStephanie MerryFeb 27, 2018
What was a steamy battle of wits in the novel looks more like a chemistry-free charade onscreen. Instead of character development the audience gets torture galore, whether it’s Dominika being doused with freezing water while naked and tied to a chair or a particularly sadistic character flaying someone alive. Read full review
50
Screen DailyTim GriersonFeb 16, 2018
Trying to split the difference between trashy and classy, Red Sparrow is a sleek, juiced-up espionage thriller that overdoes everything: its brutal violence, its dramatic flourishes, its hairpin plot twists, and most certainly its sexpot shamelessness. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeFeb 16, 2018
A pervy premise and top-flight cast yield a mixed-bag spy flick. Read full review
42
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezFeb 16, 2018
While it’s Lawrence’s most mature and relatively subtle effort to date, it’s also, unfortunately, a slog. The director’s well-intentioned patience ultimately means nothing when its interminable pacing makes the movie feel twice as protracted as its longwinded, two-hour-plus running time. Read full review
40
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMay 12, 2018
The question of where Dominika’s true loyalties lie isn’t nearly as ambiguous as the film seems to think, while the question of the mole’s identity becomes a footling side concern as the film ties itself up in Lawrence and Edgerton’s is-it-for-real-or-isn’t-it flirtations. Read full review
38
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsFeb 28, 2018
The cast excels at transcending its material. The script by Justin Haythe matches Francis Lawrence’s direction; it’s workmanlike and steady and pretty flat. Read full review
35
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeFeb 16, 2018
Neither intelligent enough to be involving nor fun enough to be trashy, this is a movie that would only work if it were a little worse or a lot better. Read full review
30
The New YorkerAnthony LaneMar 5, 2018
Glum, protracted, and needlessly nasty. Read full review
30
SlateInkoo KangMar 4, 2018
Feminist cinephilia has always been a complicated proposition, but it should surely demand better than this blunder. Read full review
30
Village VoiceApril WolfeMar 1, 2018
With Lawrence (the director) and Lawrence (the actor) so professionally in tune over the course of three Hunger Games films, you might have hoped that the pair would deliver an off-the-rails, more mature action film with a nuanced female protagonist. But instead, they’ve delivered a lifeless peep show. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternMar 1, 2018
The film suffers, terminally, from joyless direction by Francis Lawrence — no relation — and a monotonous script by Justin Haythe. Read full review
30
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerFeb 28, 2018
Coming so close on the heels of another clumsy female-led spy adaptation, "Atomic Blonde" (which at least had the good grace to be stylish in its stupidity), Red Sparrow plummets to Earth. Read full review
25
The Associated PressMark KennedyMar 1, 2018
This dark, meandering and cliche-ridden bummer starring a trying-hard Jennifer Lawrence tries to reach for a cool and stylish look at contemporary spycraft but often falls victim to cartoon violence and a muddled story. The creators may call it erotic but it’s as erotic as a visit to the dentist. Read full review
25
New York PostSara StewartFeb 27, 2018
“Do you know how long it takes to peel the skin from a human body?” a torture-happy Russian goon asks in Red Sparrow. I imagine it feels about as long as sitting through this atrocious spy thriller. Read full review
25
IGNWilliam BibbianiFeb 27, 2018
Red Sparrow is too disturbing and brutal to be popcorn entertainment, and by trying to make the uncomfortable storylines and interminable torture sequences palatable for the audience, it completely undermines its ability to operate as a serious drama. Read full review
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