Red Sparrow Review: 5 Ups & 5 Downs

4. The Uncompromising, R-Rated Tone

It would've been a huge mistake for this movie to be rated PG-13, but thankfully, it goes the full, R-rated hog, and largely delivers the mature content you'd expect from a story about Russian spies using their bodies as weapons.

Francis Lawrence manages to avoid gratuity for its own sake, but doesn't shy away from numerous sequences of nudity and harsh violence which befit the lurid premise.

Surely the most unsettling sequence, however, involves the torture of a character late in the movie, and though it features just a few drops of blood, the fantastic sound design sells the brutality in stomach-churning fashion.

Some will certainly have problems with the movie's approach to sexual abuse and rape - especially in the current climate - but the movie never asserts itself to be a female empowerment tale, and fully accepts the horrifying nature of Dominika's work.