The Mother

After I've seen the documentary Halftime (2022), Jennifer Lopez can film whatever generic movie she might imagine and I'll give her credit for that. In fact, after watching Halftime I've seen Gigli (2003) and found it not bad as everyone is trying to convince you-

Is The Mother a bad movie? No. Is it generic? Yes, so what. I've seen a lot of trash getting rave reviews and ratings on this website. In this sense, The Mother is not very different from any contemporary action movie.

At the same time there are some genuine emotional moments, in particular everything surrounding the character played by Jenifer Lopez and her daughter. This alone is more than most of contemporary action movies offer. If in doubt about my observations, please watch anything from John Wick franchise and tell me it isn't trash.

I'm surprised that so many people dislike this movie so much. It wasn't AMAZING but it was fairly entertaining throughout with some beautiful scenery and lots of action.

The acting wasn't bad and we had no problem following or getting into the storyline. Some parts were a little "yeah as if", but that can be said of almost any action movie.

Considering how many terrible movies are on streaming services right now I dont think this movie deserves the level of low ratings it is recieving.... It wasn't my favorite, but I genuinely wanted to see how it ended (instead of turning it off 15 mins in like so many other movies).

Yet another vanity project for Lopez, this time as an action hero with fur coats, and the same hair and makeup in pretty much every scene, even if the scenes are 12 years apart. This film needed a more versatile actress, one that would lose the long hair locks and have it messed up, one that could handle - and look convincing, with some dirt and scratches on her face, one who can show some facial expressions relevant to each scene, not the constant "ya I'm tough" expressionless look and tone.

Next we have a story that took three prolific writers who've written some great films and series in the past, to come up with a monotonous, repetitive, cliched and underwhelming screenplay with bits from many better films in this genre. The poorly paced nearly two-hour runtime felt much longer with many dragged out, unnecessary and predictable scenes. You know exactly what's going to happen, and you waste time watching it happen stretched out for so long, you can just fast-forward and not miss a thing. Top that all off with a director that decided to use a blurred fish-eye lens effect in some scenes, I thought I was having migraine episodes.

Had a more convincing actress been cast, it may have made the dull filmmaking a little more bearable, but combined all together, it's not the gift any mom would want for Mother's Day. It's a pass from me, and a very generous 6/10, all for the young Lucy Paez as Zoe, who was the only one that shined in this dull action thriller.

Right, an action thriller starring Jennifer Lopez, I can't really claim that I was particularly harboring much of any grand expectations to the movie as I stumbled upon it on Netflix. In fact, I had actually never heard about the movie prior to sitting down to watch it.

The synopsis for the movie seemed fair enough, and I will say that writers Misha Green, Andrea Berloff and Peter Craig put together a fair enough script and storyline for the movie. It wasn't exactly a story that brought much innovation with it, but I will say that "The Mother" was sufficiently entertaining for a single viewing. And it should be noted that the storyline was actually somewhat cliché and generic, which made it rather predictable.

The pacing of the narrative throughout the 115 minutes that the movie ran for was okay. The movie did feel a bit sluggish at times, and could perhaps have benefitted from a more efficient trim in the editing room.

The acting performances in the movie were fair enough, and Jennifer Lopez actually fared adequately enough in the movie and in this type of genre. So she has the ability to perform outside of romantic comedies. She was joined on the screen by Omari Hardwick and Joseph Fiennes, as the only familiar faces among the cast list for me.

All in all, "The Mother" is a watchable movie, entertaining enough for what it turned out to be. Just don't expect to be in for anything that haven't already been done or seen in the genre before. However, it is a movie that ultimately doesn't have enough meat on it to support more than just a single viewing. And the movie's predictability sort of stole away from both the action and thriller aspects of the script.

My rating of director Niki Caro's 2023 action thriller "The Mother" lands on a five out of ten stars.

The trailer is deceiving.

It led me to think I was gonna watch something to the tune of NOBODY. Instead we get this bad-ass lady (by way of narration by a law enforcement officer as to her past accolades) who does bad ass things early in the movie and suddenly, seemingly it all finished. Then soon audiences are reminded oh wait another bad guy still has his portion to get through.

Plotholes, cliches, mentorship in badassery to her kid that doesn't pay off and just poor writing makes for this incoherent action flick.

Sure Lopez has done some (better) action flicks in the past but this won't be the one she will be remembered by.

Jessica Chastain does a better job, Jennifer Garner, heck even Michelle Rodriguez too at being an onscreen bad-ass chick.

The only badass scene here really is when she rode that HD 48.

Such a dissapointment.