Red Sparrow is a 2018 spy-thriller film directed by Francis Lawrence who worked with Jennifer Lawrence (the star here) on a couple of the Hunger Games movies, but this is a very different beast. Jennifer Lawrence plays Dominika Egorova (in, it has to be said, a not entirely convincing Russian accent), and Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenarts and Charlotte Rampling star as the film's secondary characters. This one is a pretty big departure from what Lawrence has done in the past, although it has to be said that she's making some pretty bold career choices. I'm not the first one to say that, and for a good reason: it's true. After last year's Mother! it appeared as if she was trying purposefully trying to appear in more "mature" films, and believe me, it doesn't get much more mature than Red Sparrow. The film plays out like one of those schlocky exploitation from the seventies, in that there's sexual violence, sex, violence, torture, and all manner o
The Lego Ninjago Movie is a 2017 animated action-comedy film, and is the third instalment in a series of Lego films, which I'm sure most people reading this have heard of. I'm sure most people also know the story behind it. Before it was released, everyone was expecting one massive Lego advert, but it turned out that the first two were actually pretty great.
This one has been made in a similar style. It's a child-friendly film which also acts as a satire of the martial arts film genre. This time, the action follows Lloyd, a sixteen year old who happens to be the son of an evil conqueror (Garmadon, played by Justin Theroux), who repeatedly attacks the city of Ninjago. Unfortunately, Garmadon is always defeated by a squad of mysterious ninjas (of which Lloud is a part) who keep their identities hidden from the public. At the beginning of this film, we find out that Lloyd is Garmadon's son, and is maligned by the city for being related to him, which he has to try and deal with while also keeping the city safe.
I enjoyed this film quite a bit. It doesn't exactly reach the standard of the first two in the trilogy, but in some ways I think that's an unfair comparison. Although the first two were incredibly vibrant and had a lot of heart, one of them was totally unexpected, and the second was based on an incredibly popular superhero franchise. There's no getting away from the fact that this one is neither totally unexpected nor based on a popular franchise. Because of that, I don't think this one will find its audience quite as easily as those two did, but there's still a lot to enjoy here.
Again, this film is beautifully animated, and the city of Ninjago looks incredibly vibrant. Sometimes you watch a film and you find yourself wishing you could step into the screen and just walk around for a while. That's exactly how I felt about Ninjago. For a relatively short kids' film, the animation team created an incredibly rich world. It's no surprise, given that the previous two Lego films gave me the exact same feeling.
The voice acting is good too, and the visual comedy has made a very welcome return here. I saw this pretty late at night, and there were only a few people in the screening, but they all seemed to be enjoying the jokes. Of course, some of the more cine-literate jokes (which there are a lot of) went over the young kids' heads, but they were included in the film specifically so the adults have something to laugh at too. With that being said, the jokes aimed at kids were actually pretty funny too.
There are a lot of very stylish and exciting action scenes, too. The only problem with this film is that I don't think they took the satire as far as they could have, which is a bit of a problem because the story is a little more predictable than the other two in the series. The film does get away with it though, because the characters are very likeable.
So overall this film is pretty entertaining. It's not quite as effective as the first two, but as far as big capitalist enterprises this go, the Lego Movie series is one of the (if not the) best I can think of. This is very much a family-orientated film, but I think the average film fan will also find stuff to enjoy here too if they give it a chance. However, if you've never seen a Lego film before, I'd recommend starting with the first one.
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