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
This year is the 30th anniversary of the release of Predator, the popular sci-fi action film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. This is one of the first films I remember watching and loving (as I'm sure it is for many people), but before going into the screening I realised I hadn't seen the film for a very long time. I was actually a little worried that I wouldn't like it as much as I did when I was younger.
This film was directed by John Mctiernan, who rose to extreme fame when he directed Die Hard one year after Predator was released, and there's no way I can call someone who made that film a bad director. The first thing I noticed about Predator was just how generically masculine it is. They don't make them like this anymore, and for good reason. There are plenty of extremely cringeworthy jokes about having sex with women and the size of their vaginas (as if it's something everyone thinks about, all the time) , which i definitely could have done without. There's also a lot of men being stoic, refusing to cry, confronting their enemies in the coldest way possible. The idea that men act that way is a complete fiction, and one that isn't particularly welcome.
With that being sad, I can understand why I enjoyed this film all those years ago. It is fast-paced and exciting, and of all the action films which are just vehicles for Arnold Schwarzenegger to fight his way to freedom, this is one of the most creative. Donald McAlpine's cinematography is great. I particularly love the sections in which we see the world through Predator's eyes. For the first half an hour, you really get a sense of threat from them, and it makes you wonder what exactly the monster is.
Above all, I think Alan Silvestri's musical score adds the most to this film. With one that was more generic and less frantic, I think the action scenes would feel very plodding and unexciting, because most of them are just montages of men shooting, then running, then shooting again, and so on. The last fight is effectively Arnold Schwarzenegger running and falling. Fortunately, the music makes all of it work better than it should.
I do have some problems with this film, though. The end does leave a lot to be desired in my opinion. At the end, Arnold Schwarzenegger covers himself in mud, which somehow makes him undetectable to Predator's heat sensor. I don't know how, and I think the writers had written themselves into a corner and needed a way for Arnold Schwarzenegger's character to have an advantage in the fight. It just seemed ridiculous to me.
Unfortunately, after 30 years, Predator does seem to have aged quite considerably. It's far too hyper-masculine for a modern audience, and the sexist humour in parts of the film just makes it worse. Still, for action film fans there's quite a bit to enjoy here, and it's a very good film to watch with friends and relax.
.JPG)
Comments
Post a Comment