The Mother is an ugly, bland, poorly acted and edited action film. Its ugliness is not even laughable.
Premieres: 12/05/2023 (Netflix)
Original title: The Mother
Directed by: Niki Caro
Screenplay: Misha Green, Andrea Berloff & Peter Craig
Starring: Jennifer Lopez, Joseph Fiennes, Omari Hardwick, Gael Garcia Bernal
Duration: 116 minutes
Age Range: K16
Reviews of The Mother, the Netflix action film starring Jennifer Lopez, were released today.
It says almost everything it needs about the film’s level. Actionmäiske is such numbingly boring Netflix bulk that it puts to shame Joseph Fiennes and Gael García Bernal, who appear alongside Lopez in the film.
The Mother is directed by Niki Caro, who helmed Disney’s Mulan remake. The script was written by Lovecraft Country series creator Misha Green, Andrea Berloff known from Straight Outta Compton, and Peter Craig. The film’s credit goes to the fact that you can get excellent learning material from Kassari. A perfect example of a manuscript that has been edited several times, but edited thoroughly, has almost everything wrong.
For Netflix, this kind of scum is famous time after time.
In the film, Lopez plays an unknown hitman who is forced into hiding for years when bad guys kidnap his daughter.
Zoe Jr., played by Lucy Pease, must be put up for adoption right after birth so the crooks can’t find her. The photos also feature an FBI agent, played by Omari Hardwick, who is Lopez’s high school friend and regularly reports to the biological mother about the child’s life.
Director Niki Caro’s version of Mulan was a mystery affair after his capable films North Country and Whale Rider. On Disney’s payroll, directors rarely get to make good-looking movies. Mulan seemed as if the director had forgotten almost everything he had previously mastered.
The Mother is an even worse film than its predecessor, with Jennifer Lopez running through it looking half-asleep. The character changes from scene to scene like a different person. One moment she’s an incredibly aloof killer, the next she’s a tender and loving mother. Sometimes an indifferent mute appears, fed up with the whole world. He is willing to cooperate before deciding to become a lone wolf again.
You can’t catch the lady, and her and her daughter’s fate couldn’t be less interesting.
Gael García Bernal turns up in only a few scenes. His character clearly ends up on the massive cutting room floor. Joseph Fiennes’ main villain is evil to the end. Adrian Lowell, played by Fiennes, is as insignificant as the main character.
From the first action scene itself, the director breaks the 180 degree rule. Mäiske has nothing to do with its jagged cut.
People, cars, motorcycles and snowmobiles are thrown from left to right, but cuts cause the direction to change within seconds, how many times. Hectic headless chatter is the rage. The flicker of continuity cuts is already numb after the first quarter.
Of course, rules are made to be broken, but you shouldn’t do it if you don’t have enough skill. The mother is still a much worse cut than its predecessor. I recommend watching this video clip about Mulan’s deviousness. You cannot blame the director for everything.
Of course, a goofy action movie doesn’t have to be realistic, but The Mother’s silliness is in a class of its own. The film also takes itself entirely too seriously.
In the beginning, our pregnant heroine is stabbed in the stomach, and the baby is born by caesarean section. That doesn’t slow down the many women who watch John Wick movies. On the other hand, he doesn’t seem to be in much of a hurry. After the stabbing experience, Lopez’s character has at some point applied the last of her contouring makeup. That’s when we run away to Alaska to hide from the bad guys.
From here, The Mother jumps ahead 12 years. Mother is still hiding in a cabin in the middle of the woods, and hasn’t aged a day. There is apparently a world class beauty salon and hair salon in the middle of nowhere. A woman living without running water, electricity and an indoor toilet is still like a shampoo advertisement. Of course, if a male hero was hiding in the scoots, his hair and beard would also be in place until the last moment.
After the first third, the movie completely freezes up. Mother and daughter should bond. Besides getting to know each other, of course, I have to train my passengers to be pocket-sized killers. Fiennes’s bad man also disappears from the story entirely. The dude comes back in the final battle of the story as if out of nowhere.
Ben Seresin’s decision of cinematographer and director to repeatedly use the fisheye lens as an effect is inexplicable.
The images captured by the lens distort the world as seen by the character who sustained the head injury. Reality gets blurred at the edges. However, the same lens is used in many scenes without any proper reason. Hits are affected only by the makers of the film.
Snowy Canada is looking handsome and beautiful in some aerial photos. As landscape photos repeat, you know how often you wish a drone would fall from the sky. Las Palmas, on the other hand, doesn’t look like Cuba – even if some of the old arches there have been dug up to collapse.
I don’t remember anything about the original music from the movie, but I love listening to Massive Attack and Grimes even with this kind of music in the background.
It remains a mystery why Kate Bush, who owns the rights to her songs, has given permission for her song This Woman’s Work to be used in the film. It has appeared in so many movies and series. Bush is still careful about using his songs. For example, Running Up That Hill, which became a huge hit again last summer with Stranger Things, came about in part because the composer was a fan of the series.
The scene in The Mother Where This Woman Work is a perfect example of how a famous song tries to manipulate the viewer into feeling something. When the visuals don’t move one way or the other, maybe the song helps.
In such a situation, the age-old trick will not work.
Mother is an ugly, soulless, horribly acted and edited film – horribly bad in all the wrong ways. Its ugliness is not even laughable. Over the course of two hours, even the most boring action gets annoying only a couple of times.
Mother
“I cannot dare to recommend The Mother Action Movie to even the most hardcore fans of Jennifer Lopez.”
