Red Sparrow

I knew going into Red Sparrow that the Russians were going to be the bad guys and the story would focus heavily on their evil and immorality.  This seemed all-too-likely because the Democrats have been pushing the "Russians stole the election" narrative and, "Trump isn't hard enough on the Russians," narrative for quite sometime now, and also because the Russians make great villains.

I was not mistaken.

However, I don't think this is bad or merely Hollywood propaganda, mainly because the Russian government is bad.  Anyone who argues against this is simply denying the entire history of the Soviet Union which murdered millions of its own citizens.  And also is denying that Putin has become the same dictator that Russians have had repeatedly since the beginning of time.

This raises an interesting philosophical question that the movie doesn't really go into: Are Russians simply bad at freedom?  I normally stand against the idea that it is impossible for some countries to learn how to be free, but Russia makes it difficult!  For more than 1000 years they have been subjugated by horrible rulers and had very little freedom.  They have had multiple and revolutions and always put a dictator back in power.  When will they learn?  Will they ever?

Back to the movie.

The movie stars Jenifer Lawrence (everyone's favorite liberal, who recently said she was going to take a year off from acting to "help fix our democracy" --maybe someone should explain to her that the United States is actually a representative republic, but whatever--), and Joel Edgerton who I've liked in pretty much every movie I've ever seen him in.

There is a lot of sex and nudity.  We have come to expect this from Hollywood movies over the last several decades but this movie really does have a lot of it.  There are multiple rape scenes and one sex scene.  Lawrence is completely naked at one point and a male actor also strips down for the camera.

Violence, obviously.  There are some very graphic scenes that include someone being strangled and having their skin peeled off, and Lawrence takes a severe beating.

There is no virtue signaling, very minimal homosexuality, and the movie is generally free from Liberal asides.  Dianne Feinstein's chief of staff does make an appearance and it's very comical.  Additionally, the movie does mention how terrible the Russian's state-run healthcare is, so that's an unexpected bonus.

The plot of the movie is quite good and has lots of twists and turns.  It isn't difficult to figure out what happens in the end and some scenes feel slightly cluttered.  Although the movie is quite long, it doesn't feel that long even though I saw it at midnight and was the only person in the theater.  Lawrence and Edgerton perform well and Lawrence's accent is actually pretty good.

The effects are very nice and there is no cheesy CGI and the fight scenes are quite believable.  If you didn't like Atomic Blonde because you thought it was unrealistic (highly) that a 110lb woman could throw around men twice her size, Red Sparrow doesn't suffer from the same problems.  Lawrence's character is encouraged to use her feminine abilities more than actually fight anyone.

I find myself comparing Red Sparrow to Salt because they both have female leads who are Russian undercover agents.  I would say that if you liked Salt, you will also like Red Sparrow, but the former is a better movie.

Overall, the movie is worth watching and is free from the typical Liberal nonsense.