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
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
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