The story of a gorgeous young woman with an unfortunate past who gets recruited into a secret super spy program in Russian intelligence that happens to be a combo of color and animal only for her to turn into a surprise Fatale using her looks to distract others from what she's doing. Sound familiar? Yeah, it's basically the dramatization of the Black Widow story, just with fewer superheroes.

I want to give this movie credit. It's a female-led, Russian spy drama with very little shooting or explosions and instead focused entirely on espionage and intrigue. Problem is that it's bland, kinda boring and horribly paced. By the end, I didn't really care what was happening or why, I just wanted to be done. So many middle aged white guys blah-blah-blahing about stuff while the dead fish J-Law runs the table on them. Seriously, she's pretty and all but she felt so... One note in this movie. Every now and then you'd get a flicker of a personality but then BOOM right back to the blank-faced nothing again. She seems to clumsily set things up that people just fall for because reasons and also has this weirdly devoted relationship with her mother that felt really out of place in this whole thing.

What does it come down to? I don't think this guy's a good director. I like Constantine, but that's a weirdly done movie too. I Am Legend suffers a lot of director issues and I have to think the Hunger Games weren't great works of cinema. The guy just seems to linger in the land of missed potential. He's got all the pieces, the ideas, the actors, and yet he can not put together a knockout film. It's really annoying.

I wouldn't recommend Red Sparrow. Go watch Atomic Blonde instead.