The Mother
Netflix | Release Date (Streaming): May 12, 2023 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
45
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 26 Critic Reviews
Positive:
4
Mixed:
15
Negative:
7
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
IndieWireJude DryMay 11, 2023
If they can look past their own internal biases, The Mother should satisfy even the most diehard action fans, while leaving the door to some new ones. Read full review
75
ObserverEmily ZemlerMay 10, 2023
While the plot and characterization occasionally falter, Lopez is charismatic, tough and—it has to be said—totally ripped. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comKatie RifeMay 12, 2023
Like most Netflix movies, no matter what The Mother would be a perfectly serviceable thing to have on in the background while you tidied the living room or answered emails on your phone. The spy-movie setup is generic enough to follow while doing something else, and the villains’ motivations are only as specific as the plot needs them to be, which is to say not very specific at all. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMay 11, 2023
The second half of The Mother settles for the usual. But getting there makes for a fairly diverting series of melees in the name of child protection, with services rendered by a tough-love mom who does it all. Read full review
60
Screen RantFerdosa AbdiMay 21, 2023
The Mother is a lean, mean actioner, but one that could have benefited from better editing and a tighter script. That’s not to say that the film is terrible or unbearable by any means, it's just that it is a straightforward narrative that does not require a nearly two-hour run time to tell it right. Read full review
60
EmpireAmon WarmannMay 15, 2023
This is a come-for-Lopez, stay-for-Lopez endeavour, and she’s on fine, movie star form in this serviceable, if forgettable action thriller. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesNoel MurrayMay 12, 2023
From scene to scene, Lopez and Caro do fill these broad outlines with real feeling, bringing a personal touch to old pulp archetypes. Read full review
60
TimeStephanie ZacharekMay 12, 2023
The Mother would be more effective if she could wink at the audacity of the material instead of just playing it all straight. But then, Lopez can get away with things that other mere mortals can’t, and if you approach it in the right spirit, The Mother could be ridiculously good fun. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyMay 11, 2023
I’ll take this JLo as “nobody fucks with me or my daughter” killing machine, discovering her long-hidden maternal instincts, over those grimly generic rom-coms she cranks out once a year, which might as well be direct-to-inflight movies. Read full review
60
The New York TimesLisa KennedyMay 11, 2023
Apart from some deadpan exchanges between the Mother and Zoe, Lopez plays the role fierce. Even so, it isn’t always clear which gestures in the film should be taken seriously, and which make sport of the genre’s masculine posturing while offering an allegory about a birth mother’s sacrifice. Read full review
59
Paste MagazineJesse HassengerMay 11, 2023
Lopez indulges a different form of movie-star vanity than simply making herself over as an unstoppable woman of action. The movie pretends to conceal her mothering sensitivity, but it’s actually flaunting the same maudlin old-man sentimentality that drives so many Liam Neeson vehicles, minus the genuine anguish Neeson can usually summon on cue. Read full review
58
ColliderTania HussainMay 11, 2023
The character-driven action epic from director Niki Caro is at times imbalanced and lacks subtlety. Yet, like its lead, it manages to get the job done. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubCourtney HowardMay 11, 2023
It’s decent but a tad too restrained for its own good. Read full review
50
SlashfilmChris EvangelistaMay 16, 2023
While there's enough action (murky action, but action all the same) to keep you at least half-engaged with the material, you might want to spend Mother's Day weekend doing something else instead. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperMay 12, 2023
I’m not going to spoil the epilogue in the slick but trashy and quite dumb Jennifer Lopez action movie The Mother, but I will say it’s so insanely off the rails, so bat-bleep crazy that I almost want you to watch The Mother just so you’ll know what I’m talking about. Almost. Read full review
50
The Associated PressLindsey BahrMay 12, 2023
The most interesting part of The Mother, a decent if forgettable action pic starring Jennifer Lopez, is the one that is left largely unexplored. The movie is a high-concept thriller that boils down to just a few words: She’s a mother and an assassin. Read full review
50
VarietyOwen GleibermanMay 11, 2023
The movie, which should have been 90 minutes long (it’s 116), is lumpy and inflated, it’s sketchy yet a touch grandiose, and it’s full of tersely dramatized scenes that somehow feel overly broad. Read full review
45
PolygonPete VolkMay 13, 2023
The end result for Netflix is a missed opportunity to redefine a generational star as a bona fide action hero. Read full review
40
Rolling StoneDavid FearMay 12, 2023
So much of The Mother feels like a movie star doing an imitation of what they think a tough, serious, jaded hero is like rather than actually playing one. Lopez is an actor with a particularly deep set of skills. You wish she’d brought some more of her expressive ones to this revenge flick. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreMay 12, 2023
The Mother is watchable, here and there. Decently acted. Over-the-top, but not far enough over it to make it fun. Read full review
35
CNNBrian LowryMay 12, 2023
The kill count generally provides the requisite thrills, but everything else seems stitched together from genre clichés. Read full review
25
ObserverRex ReedMay 19, 2023
It’s annoyingly lumpy, shockingly pedestrian, and instantly forgettable. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMay 12, 2023
Lacking the velocity and excitement of an action movie and the reality of good drama, The Mother is the worst of both worlds. Read full review
25
The PlaylistMarya E. GatesMay 12, 2023
Unfortunately [Lopez's] hampered by a character that is simultaneously overwritten and underwritten, while trapped in a film that never gives any of its characters room for the type of nuance a performance at that register requires. Read full review
25
ABC NewsPeter TraversMay 12, 2023
Jennifer Lopez and all the mothers out there deserve better than this gross, cringey gorefest about a military-trained assassin (JLo) who makes up to the pre-teen daughter she gave up at birth by instructing her in the fine art of killing bad guys. Happy Mother’s Day, indeed. Read full review
20
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 11, 2023
It’s a script which shows every sign of having had plenty of rewrites, though perhaps it could have done with a few more. Read full review
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