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The “movie star,” that mysterious creature whose blinding charisma pulls everyone into its irresistible orbit, is becoming an endangered species. That makes Jennifer Lopez —a movie star par excellence —the onscreen equivalent of a majestic snow leopard. Lopez can easily carry a film on her own, and her latest project, “The Mother,” is lucky to have her.

That’s not to say that the latest film from director Niki Caro (“Mulan”) and a screenwriting team led by “Underground” creator Misha Green would totally sink without its star. Like most Netflix movies, “The Mother” would be a perfectly serviceable thing to have on in the background while you tidied the living room or answered emails on your phone. The spy-movie setup is generic enough to follow while doing something else, and the villains’ motivations are only as specific as the plot needs them to be, which is to say, not very specific at all.

“The Mother” was screened for critics in theaters, where the immersive setup makes the paint-by-numbers portions of the plot really stick out. A handful of odd stylistic choices also attract attention in this format: A recurring visual motif of wide-angle shots with blurred edges; odd, jumpy edits seem to compensate for a lack of coverage on set.

But the big screen also provides a bigger canvas for the film’s picturesque locations, like wild Tlingit Bay, Alaska, the sweltering streets of Havana—and, uh, Cincinnati, Ohio. (Every spy needs a place to hide out.) More importantly, it’s also more real estate for Lopez’s face.

For the most part, that billion-dollar mug is set into an expression of grim determination in “The Mother,” which opens with an unnamed FBI informant (Lopez) and her handler Cruise ( Omari Hardwick ) barely escaping from a bloody attack on an FBI safe house in suburban Indiana. The informant soon becomes The Mother, as the pregnant ex-spy gives birth to a baby girl while in the hospital recovering from her wounds. She has two options: Either escape with the infant and stay on the run forever or sign over her parental rights so her daughter can have a normal life. She chooses the latter.

She never signs away her emotional commitment, however. And she continues to watch expectantly from the sidelines, waiting for the day when her past will also shape young Zoe’s ( Lucy Paez ) life. And indeed, just after Zoe’s 12th birthday, The Mother’s friend and confidant, Jons ( Paul Raci ), comes by her isolated Alaskan lakeside cabin with a message: Zoe is in danger. It’s go time.

As with her celebrated turn as a pole dancer in “ Hustlers ,” much of the excitement in “The Mother” is watching Lopez in motion. She swings a knife in hand-to-hand combat. She jumps across the roofs of cars in an urban foot chase. Even the subtle movement of loading and cocking a sniper rifle while lying belly-down on a rooftop is thrilling when she does it. Lopez translates her background as a dancer into gritty action choreography with the ease of a seasoned professional.

The film shifts gears about halfway in, as Zoe and her mother retreat to Mom’s cabin for a hybrid bonding session and wilderness survival course leading up to the fiery action finale. “The Mother” is arguably too long at 115 minutes, but it’s difficult to say which scenes, in particular, could have been cut; in its quieter moments, both Lopez and her young co-star Paez give convincing performances as the gruff mentor and pouty student.

If anything, the film could have used more of these moments, which feel real and tangible compared to the cardboard cut-out bad guys played by Joseph Fiennes and Gael Garcia Bernal. Either of these men, we’re told, could be Zoe’s father, and it’s their obsession with The Mother that drives the rest of the narrative. Get in line, fellas.

On Netflix now.

Katie Rife is a freelance writer and critic based in Chicago with a speciality in genre cinema. She worked as the News Editor of The A.V. Club from 2014-2019, and as Senior Editor of that site from 2019-2022. She currently writes about film for outlets like Vulture, Rolling Stone, Indiewire, Polygon , and RogerEbert.com.

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Film credits.

The Mother (2023)

Rated R for violence, some language and brief drug use.

115 minutes

Jennifer Lopez as Mother

Joseph Fiennes as Adrian

Omari Hardwick as Cruise

Gael García Bernal as Hector

Paul Raci as Jons

Lucy Paez as Zoe

Writer (story)

Misha Green
Andrea Berloff
Peter Craig

Cinematographer

Ben Seresin
David Coulson
Germaine Franco

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The Mother Reviews Are Here, And Critics Are Saying The Same Thing About Jennifer Lopez’s Netflix Action Movie

Just in time for Mother's Day.

Jennifer Lopez hit the big screen with two movies last year — the adorable rom-com Marry Me and then the romantic action flick Shotgun Wedding . This year it appears she’s leaving the romance to her personal life, with her new Netflix movie The Mother bringing straight action. JLo plays the titular character, a former assassin who comes out of retirement to protect her estranged daughter. The reviews are in, so let’s see if this is one you’ll be firing up with a bag of microwave popcorn for this Mother’s Day weekend.

Along with Jennifer Lopez , the cast of The Mother includes Lucy Paez in her first major role as daughter Zoe, and Joseph Fiennes and Gael Garcia Bernal as ex-boyfriends/arms dealers. The Hustlers actress was looking great in the first looks for the female-driven action movie, and the trailer promises we’ll get to see JLo kicking plenty of ass . Let’s get to the critics, starting with CinemaBlend’s review of The Mother . Our own Mike Reyes rates the movie just 2 stars out of 5, saying Lopez proves herself as an action lead, but the film never figures out how to mesh that with the emotional premise. He continues:

Seeing as Jennifer Lopez is the mother that gives the film its title, the failure to build her character causes a collapse on shaky foundation on which this movie is built. The action is too tame to raise your heartrate, and the drama is so basic that you can almost always guess what the next line’s going to be. Predictability doesn’t always kill a movie, but if you don’t add a little bit more to the pot to really flavor what’s being served, the result isn’t going to taste good.

Courtney Howard of AV Club grades The Mother a C+, agreeing with the above review that Jennifer Lopez delivers with both her powerful punches and empowering emotions, but the film overall doesn’t examine, augment or challenge the genre’s familiar formulas. The review states:

The film’s fabric experiences a few frays that lead to a sloppy unraveling. Around the midpoint, characters slowly stop behaving as humans, and behave more like puppets functioning on behalf of the story. It also suffers from a villain problem where both of the evil exes are barely one dimensional, neither oppressive nor genuinely menacing due to Fiennes’ and Bernal’s lack of meaty material. Screenwriter contrivances guide the second-to-third-act transition. The Mother’s considerable abilities begin to slip for baffling reasons that run counter to her established character—early on she can mend a bullet wound with superglue, but later she can’t stitch a bite wound.

Nadia Dalimonte of Next Best Picture rates the movie 6 out of 10, saying that while JLo brings a refreshing perspective on female perseverance, the film around her is flawed, with a screenplay that rushes storylines and action sequences that are edited so heavily they’re hard to follow. The critic says:

The film reaches more interesting heights in its second half when it focuses on how the mother-daughter dynamic is shaped by Lopez’s character resurfacing in Zoe’s life. The screenplay gives the two characters a bit of time to communicate some of the things they had imagined wanting to say to each other. ... Despite the promise of the film’s second half and the entertainment value of watching Lopez fight through every imaginable obstacle to protect her daughter, the film feels unexplored to its full potential. Large gaps in the story leave more questions than answers, for instance, regarding why the threats posed to these characters operate on such relentless levels.

Owen Gleiberman of Variety calls The Mother “action filmmaking made basic,” but he seems to fall in line with the other critics when it comes to the leading actress, who Gleiberman says deserves better. In terms of JLo, he continues:

She shoots, she stabs, she chops windpipes, she motorcycles down stone stairways in one of those chase-through-an-ancient-city action scenes (this one takes place in Havana), she tortures a man by punching him with a fist wrapped in barbed wire, she grimaces in muscle-torn agony but mostly looks frozen and implacable. Even more important, she puts her own spin on those familiar motions.

Peter Travers of GMA Culture says Jennifer Lopez (and all of the mothers out there) deserve better, given this movie’s dopey dialogue and nonsensical plot. The critic points out that watching JLo kick ass is absolutely the main draw, saying:

It's hard to find any reason why these former lovers of Mother, whose taste in men needs a serious rethink, would raise armies to destroy her other than Lopez is a star and it's fun to watch director Niki Caro (Whale Rider, Mulan) set up this Latina powerhouse to mow down the bad guys like sitting ducks of macho ineptitude.

The critics overall seem disappointed in The Mother , but it sounds like Jennifer Lopez’s performance might make this worth watching anyway. The movie is available now for those with a Netflix subscription , so feel free to check it out for yourself! You can also take a look at our 2023 Movie Release Schedule to see what’s coming to theaters soon.

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Heidi Venable is a Content Producer for CinemaBlend, a mom of two and a hard-core '90s kid. She started freelancing for CinemaBlend in 2020 and officially came on board in 2021. Her job entails writing news stories and TV reactions from some of her favorite prime-time shows like Grey's Anatomy and The Bachelor. She graduated from Louisiana Tech University with a degree in Journalism and worked in the newspaper industry for almost two decades in multiple roles including Sports Editor, Page Designer and Online Editor. Unprovoked, will quote Friends in any situation. Thrives on New Orleans Saints football, The West Wing and taco trucks.

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‘The Mother’ Review: As a Military Sniper Who Comes Out of Hiding to Protect Her Daughter, Jennifer Lopez Anchors an Inflated Action Movie

She occupies the terrain of Statham and Willis in what should have been a 90-minute B-movie.

By Owen Gleiberman

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THE MOTHER, from left: Jennifer Lopez, Lucy Paez, 2023. ph: Doane Gregory / © Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection

In a movie career that stretches back 25 years, Jennifer Lopez has on occasion done flaked-out underworld thriller romance (“Out of Sight”), capery action (“Parker”) and revenge (“Enough”). Yet she has never placed herself at the center of such a down-and-dirty, grimly overwrought, execute-now-and-ask-questions-later B-movie as “ The Mother .” I’m tempted to call the film “minimalist,” because if you consider its bare-bones screenplay (by three writers!), its convoluted utilitarian set-up, its 2D villains, and its essential formulaic momentum, it’s a prime example of action filmmaking made basic.

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This is a rather tortured scenario, given that it’s mostly the film’s way of setting up an adult-meets-kid action movie like “The Professional” or “Logan.” Those films were far better (because their scripts felt like more than diagrams). “The Mother,” as a Lopez vehicle, reminded me of nothing so much as Liam Neeson’s recent run of revenge potboilers. Yet there’s a way you can enjoy some of those films almost for their limitations; it’s all about pinning your entire investment on the karma of Neeson. “The Mother” was directed by Niki Caro, the New Zealand filmmaker who made the soulful and acclaimed “Whale Rider” 20 years ago, and Caro keeps the focus on the Lopez heroine’s obsession. She may not have seen her daughter for 12 years, but her connection to her is primal, and that’s what drives the action. She’s doing what she does because she has to.

The film leaps locations nearly as much as a nuclear-arms thriller, but once Lopez ambushes the palatial Cuban estate where Hector (Gabriel García Bernal), one of the two arms dealers, has lured her (their face-off, backdropped by church candles, is stylized enough to feel like something out of a “John Wick” film), she retrieves the endangered Zoe and takes her to the cabin, nestled in the snowy pine wilderness of Alaska, where she herself hid out for those 12 years. Paul Raci, the intensely compelling actor, all sinewy furrowed thought, who played the self-actualizing deaf halfway-house guru in “Sound of Metal” is Lopez’s old military comrade, and Joseph Fiennes is Adrian, the other arms dealer — a scarred psycho who will pursue Lopez to the ends of the earth. But she knows he’s coming. So she trains the tween Zoe in her survivalist techniques, which is a touch preposterous, but whatever.

The climax features Adrian coming at her with a dozen henchmen on snowmobiles, a sequence that brought me back, momentarily, to the ski chase in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.” This one has no such majesty. It’s a lot of blam-blam , with the bodies picked off like video-game fodder. “The Mother” is watchable product, but Lopez proves that she can rousingly carry a picture like this one. The truth is, it doesn’t do her justice. Her character is by training a sniper, and at one point she has to pick off some villains by shooting into a crowd in a way that no world-class sniper would ever do. It made me think: Forget this slovenly, opportunistic action. What Lopez deserves to star in is a new-world remake of “The Day of the Jackal.”

Reviewed online, May 10, 2023. MPA Rating: R. Running time: 116 MIN.

Production: A Netflix release of a Nuyorican Productions, Vertigo Entertainment production. Producers: Jennifer Lopez, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, Benny Medina, Roy Lee, Miri Yoon, Marc Evans, Misha Green. Executive producer: Molly Allen.
Crew: Director: Niki Caro. Screenplay: Misha Green, Andrea Berloff, Peter Craig. Camera: Ben Seresin. Editor: David Coulson. Music: Germaine Franco.
With: Jennifer Lopez, Joseph Fiennes, Lucy Paez, Omari Hardwick, Paul Raci, Gael García Bernal.

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‘The Mother’ Review: Are You My Sniper?

At the heart of this action-thriller, an expert killer, played by Jennifer Lopez, must rescue her daughter at all costs.

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Jennifer Lopez, in a dark parka, looks toward the camera. Behind her is a snowy forest.

By Lisa Kennedy

A movie called “The Mother” is sure to have a lot of symbolism and this action-thriller, starring Jennifer Lopez as a trained killer who must protect the daughter she gave up, has plenty.

In the opening scenes, Lopez’s character, known only as the Mother, is interrogated by F.B.I. agents who are trying to get information on two arms dealers she has worked, and slept, with. Agent Cruise (Omari Hardwick) is respectful. The other agent (Link Baker), not so much — and tells her so with a hectoring monologue. (One of the film’s guilty pleasures becomes anticipating when a mansplainer will get hushed.)

In Niki Caro’s fast-paced film, Agent Cruise assures the Mother she’s safe. “No I’m not,” she says. Guess who’s right? Mayhem ensues and, in an act, stunning for its swift violence, we learn the Mother is pregnant. The newborn, Zoe, is placed with a loving family, and the Mother retreats to Alaska where the fellow soldier Jons (Paul Raci) has her back.

This arrangement has kept the Mother and child safe for 12 years when Agent Cruise reaches out with news that Zoe (Lucy Paez) has been found by the Mother’s former partners: Adrian Lovell (Joseph Fiennes) and Hector Alvarez (Gael García Bernal). Lovell is a nasty-smooth piece of work. As Alvarez, Bernal basks in some candlelit cruelty when the action shifts to Cuba.

What kind of resistance will the men encounter? Lovell trained the Mother as a sniper in Afghanistan. She also knows how to twist a blade.

They shouldn’t fool with the Mother’s nature. Apart from some deadpan exchanges between the Mother and Zoe, Lopez plays the role fierce. Even so, it isn’t always clear which gestures in the film should be taken seriously, and which make sport of the genre’s masculine posturing while offering an allegory about a birth mother’s sacrifice.

The Mother Rated R for gun and knife violence, some language and brief drug use. Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes. Watch on Netflix.

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The Mother review – Jennifer Lopez goes kick-ass in abject kidnap thriller

Lopez plays an ex-special forces parent aiming to rescues her kid from the bad guys in this formulaic and muddled Netflix caper

T here’s some real ChatGPT film-making here in this abjectly formulaic and inert Netflix thriller from director Niki Caro, although ChatGPT would have made a better, clearer job of the muddled story. This one has Jennifer Lopez rescue her 12-year-old daughter from the bad guys on a number of separate occasions, with one villain (Gael García Bernal) vanishing from the plot about halfway in, presumably left on the cutting-room floor. It’s a script which shows every sign of having had plenty of rewrites, though perhaps it could have done with a few more.

Lopez is ex-special forces, skilled in guns and knives and unarmed combat, with what an official calls an impressive number of “confirmed kills”; she bitterly regretted being drawn into gun-running and people-trafficking after leaving the army, and getting involved with creepy bad guys Hector Álvarez (Bernal) and former SAS Brit Adrian Lovell (Joseph Fiennes). She gets pregnant by one of them – the identity of the father is a fantastically uninteresting mystery which the film shows no interest in solving – and this personal event, combined with the horror of what she’s doing induces Lopez’s character to try getting out of the filthy trade.

Lovell tries to kill her, and the FBI offers her an amnesty only on condition that she hands over her baby to foster-care authorities and takes up a new identity in Alaska. But when she discovers, some time later, from a friendly bureau guy called Cruise (Omari Hardwick) that her sinister former colleagues are interested in kidnapping her now 12-year-old daughter, Lopez realises that she is going to have kick some ass and be a real mom to this adorable tween.

The Mother might have been entertaining, but the screenplay clunks and everyone is phoning it in, especially Fiennes who looks understandably bored and irritated by the whole tiring business.

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Jennifer Lopez
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‘the mother’ review: jennifer lopez in niki caro’s enjoyably silly netflix action thriller.

Joseph Fiennes, Omari Hardwick, Gael García Bernal and Lucy Paez also star in this study of the maternal instinct under fire as a tough assassin emerges from hiding to protect her daughter.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

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Jennifer Lopez as The Mother in The Mother.

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‘The Mother’ Review’: Jennifer Lopez In Niki Caro’s Tough-As-Nails Action Movie That Strikes The Right Balance

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Lopez is a killer of a mother, and no doubt a mother killer along the way; she admits — or perhaps boasts — that she knocked off 46 people while on duty in the Middle East, and is not someone to ever back down and do any less than kick her opponent’s ass. That said, she is understandably obsessed with her daughter Zoe, but ultimately unduly so as far as the FBI is concerned; when the agency tells her that the only way to protect her child is to disappear, she obediently agrees, disowns the child, and takes off for Alaska.

But you can bet that The Mother is not just going to just give up and live with the polar bears for the rest of her life. Sure enough, the baddies kidnap the daughter (Lucy Paez), now 12 years old, from a school playground, after which the next stop is, of all places, Havana, a location that is doubled extremely well by an urban area of the Canary Islands.

The Mother is under constraints of one kind or another most of the time, but you know she won’t remain so for too long. As it enters its final laps, The Mother ultimately becomes the female bonding film it’s been threatening to become nearly from the beginning, and it’s a hard-earned goal in almost every respect. The story is something close to a fairy tale transformed into a contemporary hard-action melodrama with a very long arc. But fanciful as it all is, the toughness of the characters and the film’s grave but propulsive energy keeps the proceedings almost always intriguing and one’s expectations in a constant state of curiosity as to where this might all end up.

Lopez is a coiled wire that sets the tone for this tautly and tightly wound tale. Nothing that’s achieved by the characters here is easy and sometimes requires indefinite amounts of patience and fortitude. Lopez and Caro seem very much in sync as they relate the sprawling tale in a disciplined manner that maintains interest and curiosity, if not high levels of downright excitement. The filmmakers avoid cheap thrills and gratuitous violence that, in other hands, might have made this story possibly more popular with viewers. But Caro holds the reins tight and has keenly told a peculiar story that will likely stick in the mind.

Title: The Mother Distributor: Netflix Release date: May 12, 2023 Director: Niki Caro Screenwriters: Misha Green and Andrea Berloff and Peter Craig Cast: Jennifer Lopez, Joseph Fiennes, Lucy Paez, Omari Hardwick, Paul Raci, Gael Garcia Bernal Rating: R Running time: 1 hr 55 min

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The Mother Reviews

Niki Caro’s tale of an assassin coming out of retirement to keep her daughter out of the crosshairs of some nasty people is the best kind of lean, mean fighting machine

Full Review | Aug 27, 2023

Jennifer Lopez makes, I think, a pretty good action star... This is sort of a generic action-flick that you may watch and forget about it about three minutes after seeing it.

Full Review | Original Score: 5.5/10 | Jul 24, 2023

Lopez is fit enough to handle the action scenes, but she just can’t sell the ruthlessness of the character. Apparently, it took no less than three writers to come up with this clichéd drivel.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 6, 2023

An exceptionally strong, emotionally-driven action-thriller...Directed at a cracking pace and with exceptional action-movie instincts by Niki Caro (Whale Rider; Mulan) [it's] a way-above-average thriller, with J.Lo at her finest.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jun 3, 2023

Maybe it is the repetitive middle or the structure of the movie, but it feels like it could have been paced more quickly and amped up the energy a little bit. I enjoyed this and would not be opposed to seeing Jennifer Lopez take on more roles like this.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jun 2, 2023

The Mother boasts an impressively weighty emotional core that ensures it hits hard when it needs to.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 1, 2023

With way too many flaws, a predictable plot, and generic and poorly developed villains, The Mother is an emotionless story and a waste of an action film. Unless you're a huge fan of J-Lo, I'd highly recommend skipping this one.

Full Review | May 26, 2023

The utterly predictable script suffers from a total lack of character development; the execution is ludicrous since JLo's hair and makeup are always flawless, perhaps because her expressionless face looks perpetually frozen.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | May 26, 2023

[This] over-familiar actioner is forgettable.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | May 24, 2023

What’s really depressing is the name behind the camera. “The Mother” was directed by Niki Caro, whose earliest efforts (Whale Rider, North Country) suggested a major talent in humanist cinema.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | May 24, 2023

The no-nonsense Lopez holds the standard issue together and the action, as directed by Niki Caro, clicks by with the rapid-fire confidence of Lopez’s mom on the trigger.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 24, 2023

The best modern iterations of this kind of movie are The Long Kiss Goodnight and Aliens. I wonder if my overall fatigue with the genre isn't a product of my searching for those highs again in the intervening, largely disappointing decades.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | May 24, 2023

...a decidedly erratic piece of work that fares best in its exciting, action-packed opening stretch...

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | May 23, 2023

But even her fierce prowess -- and unfailing good looks while fighting, chasing, and slaughtering -- can't quite save The Mother from feeling like an amalgam of existing action films.

Full Review | May 23, 2023

The Mother nearly works but there are gaps in the story, as though long sequences are missing, making for a movie that is as emotionally distant as its lead.

Full Review | May 22, 2023

This forgettable action thriller is thoroughly derivative.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | May 22, 2023

A textbook example of a star vehicle, The Mother is competently executed and intermittently engaging, but is elevated only by Lopez’s presence.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | May 22, 2023

Lopez has more than earned the right to be the star, to put great men in supporting roles, and tell a story that unapologetically centers her.

Full Review | May 21, 2023

Despite well-choreographed action and a gritty performance from Jennifer Lopez, The Mother is not the Mother’s Day vehicle Netflix had hoped it would be.

Full Review | May 20, 2023

Lopez easily has the goods to do a late career segue into action hero mode, but would appear to need a new agent and/or manager to help arrest the piling-up of bad movie vehicles that waste her prodigious talent.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | May 20, 2023

'The Mother' review: Jennifer Lopez and all the mothers out there deserve better

Just in time for Mother's Day, Jennifer Lopez stars in "The Mother."

Just in time for Mother's Day, Jennifer Lopez stars in "The Mother," the ideal tribute to devoted mothers everywhere. If only.

Instead, this R-rated Netflix gorefest is a brutal, bloody, revenge thriller that thinks killing to protect your kids is right up there with the loving art of raising them.

Yikes! There are so many things wrong with "The Mother," especially the dopey dialogue, that it's hard to know where to start enumerating its most glaring faults. Let's begin with the lame script credited to three writers who shall remain nameless -- they can thank me later.

PHOTO: Jennifer Lopez in "The Mother," 2023.

The basic plot is this. Lopez plays a military-trained assassin who gives up her daughter at birth so she can turn state's evidence against the two sadistic global terrorists -- one of them is the father -- who swears vengeance for betraying them by taking her and her daughter down.

Mother, as she's referred to throughout the movie, shows her parenting skills by asking FBI agent William Cruise (Omari Hardwick), whose life she saves in the opening shootout scene, to arrange for her child to be raised by a good family and report to her if there's any trouble.

Twelve years later, the distress call comes in for Mother at the isolated cabin in Alaska where she's been hiding in chic assassin wear with the help of Jons ("Sound of Metal" Oscar nominee Paul Raci), a soldier she served with in Afghanistan. Her daughter Zoe (Lucy Paez), whose photos she stares at dreamily, has been kidnapped. And it's Mother and William to the rescue.

MORE: Watch Jennifer Lopez in new action-packed trailer for 'The Mother'

Is the culprit Adrian Lovell, the murderous arms dealer played by Joseph Fiennes, the star of "Shakespeare in Love" and "The Handmaid's Tale" who is clearly slumming in the one-note role of a seductive Svengali who uses Mother for her "wow" body and her skills as a sniper, but can't understand why she'd give a damn about this brat that may be his.

Or is it Hector Alvarez, a contractor Mother met in Guantanamo Bay in 2007 as played by the way overqualified Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal ("Y Tu Mama Tambien," "Mozart in the Jungle"). Hector has imprisoned Zoe in a hideout in Cuba where he sits like a pervy king on a throne surrounded by candles as he plots a thoroughly ridiculous revenge.

It's hard to find any reason why these former lovers of Mother, whose taste in men needs a serious rethink, would raise armies to destroy her other than Lopez is a star and it's fun to watch director Niki Caro ("Whale Rider," "Mulan") set up this Latina powerhouse to mow down the bad guys like sitting ducks of macho ineptitude.

In the film's last third, set in Alaska where Mother instructs Zoe in the cringey craft of efficient manslaughter, Caro pumps up genuine momentum. What a shame that the script buries her skills in an avalanche of cliches and blood-drenched mother-daughter bonding that would leave the folks at Hallmark cards clutching their pearls in horror.

MORE: Review: 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3' is everything you'd want in a wacky, wild summer ride

Lopez handles the fight choreography like the dazzling dancer she is. So it's galling to watch her play this rugged warrior with glam makeup and lighting more appropriate to a magazine photo shoot. The film's poster showing a weaponized, airbrushed Lopez in a fashion fur hat and movie icon warpaint sums up the phoniness at the movie's core.

Lopez, denied the Oscar nod she deserved for "Hustlers," has always been a stronger actress than her critics allow. But "The Mother" finds her going Hollywood on a story that needed to at least seem real. It's not like male muscle stars (I'm looking at you Vin Diesel) don't indulge in the same family-that-slays-together silliness. But J.Lo and all the mothers out there deserve better.

Jennifer Lopez looks fierce while wearing a hooded fur coat in The Mother.

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Netflix’s The Mother misses a clear chance to make Jennifer Lopez an action star

Mulan and The Whale Rider director Niki Caro forgets what J.Lo does best

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Ask any great screen fighter, and they’ll tell you: Movie fighting is much more like dancing than like real fighting. Bruce Lee was famously a champion cha-cha dancer, Patrick Swayze successfully transitioned from dancer to action star, and scores of movies from India have shown how terrific dancers make for terrific screen fighters.

That’s the opportunity director Niki Caro ( The Whale Rider , Disney’s live-action Mulan ) has with Netflix’s The Mother , a dark action thriller starring Jennifer Lopez as a nameless assassin thrust back into action to protect the daughter she gave up at birth. Lopez is a singular talent who has excelled in the crime genre with Out of Sight and Hustlers. She’s an enjoyable comedic actor, and she’s particularly strong as a dancer, coming up as a Fly Girl on In Living Color before hitting global superstardom through her dance-centric music videos.

Jennifer Lopez leaps over the top of a car in The Mother.

Unfortunately, neither of those skills gets much use in The Mother , which doesn’t give her much to work with. The plot and her character are darkly serious, and the most exciting action sequences involve long-range gun fights and vehicle chase scenes. The few hand-to-hand combat sequences are edited beyond recognition, robbing viewers of any chance to follow the action or appreciate the work Lopez put in for this role.

“She had to learn how to fight, and she’s really good,” second unit director Jeff Habberstad said in a behind-the-scenes video about her training for the role. “Dance and choreography background makes it so she’s just real coordinated.”

The Mother opens at an FBI safe house, where Lopez’s very pregnant character (credited only as “The Mother”) is acting as an informant, with agents interviewing her about a pair of dangerous arms dealers. The interview ends badly, with a hard-to-parse fight scene (thanks to Netflix’s compression and some dark lighting ) that leaves her isolated, unfairly on the outs with the FBI, and forced to leave her new daughter behind. (Just saying this sequence strains credulity would be an understatement.) She makes a deal on the side with FBI agent Cruise (Omari Hardwick), who will watch her daughter and contact her if anything goes wrong. Twelve years later, she’s moved to Alaska, and gets the message that something indeed has gone wrong.

The movie’s entire setup is a series of thinly drawn characters and conflicts. In The Mother , people recite the title character’s biography to her in order to build her legend, rather than letting us see it and believe it for ourselves, or having characters tell each other about her, as if she were a spooky story (a tactic used in John Wick , and, more recently, Sisu ). Bad guys illustrate that they’re evil by pushing down nuns in the street. Gael García Bernal plays a cartoonishly villainous arms dealer who says things like “You sold your soul to the devil, how do you look so good?” — which sounds like fun, but instead plays out as another rote bad guy who sexually menaces the protagonist with a series of played-out aggressive pickup lines, like some sort of perverted wind-up doll.

Jennifer Lopez, wearing a leather jacket, stands protectively in front of Lucy Paez, in front of a motorcycle, in The Mother.

The most interesting part about The Mother is the relationship between The Mother and her estranged daughter Zoe (Lucy Paez). A small portion of the movie is spent with the two of them together, as The Mother teaches Zoe to drive, shoot, and fend for herself in the Alaska wilderness. The two of them getting to know each other and forging a connection through circumstance is the best narrative thread in The Mother , but Caro speeds through it quickly. It’s shocking when The Mother at one point refers to the “months” they’ve spent together — it feels like a week, maximum.

Some of the action beats do work better than others. A sniping scene outside a villa sees The Mother picking off guards from far away, allowing for some creative blocking and framing as the bodies drop one by one. Some later sequences in snowy Alaska at least look nicer than the poorly lit interiors from the first half, and are more exciting, including an explosive snowmobile chase and shootout. There’s also a funny gag where The Mother hits a guy with her car as a nearby wedding party does the bouquet toss, and the edit matches his flight through the air with the bouquet’s similar arc.

Jennifer Lopez lies down with a sniper rifle in the snow, with a heavy fur coat on, in The Mother.

But Caro and editor David Coulson even undercut those moments with bizarre cuts that pull the story’s punches. In one scene, The Mother is brutally interrogating a gangster, hitting him repeatedly in the face while asking questions. She actually has barbed wire around her fist, which Caro only shows after The Mother is done punching him, rather than building anticipation for the brutality by showing her wrapping her fists with it. Then The Mother waterboards him, which gets her the information she needs within seconds, because apparently we’re in the 2000s again.

The Mother is the second straight-to-streaming Jennifer Lopez action movie this year, following the Prime Video action comedy Shotgun Wedding . While The Mother goes for more emotional depth, Shotgun Wedding at least recognized Lopez’s central talents and used them, giving her an opportunity to flex her comedic chops as well as her movement skills. The end result for Netflix is a missed opportunity to redefine a generational star as a bona fide action hero.

The Mother is streaming on Netflix now.

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<i>The Mother</i> Plays It Too Straight—But J.Lo’s Appeal Is Eternal

The Mother Plays It Too Straight—But J.Lo’s Appeal Is Eternal

N ot since Stella Dallas has a mother made so many selfless sacrifices for her daughter. Not since Taken has a protective parent fended off so many rotten baddies. Mush those two genres together—the classic women’s picture and the pulpy, rage-driven action adventure—and you get The Mother, in which Jennifer Lopez plays the mother to end all mothers, a mysterious assassin who slinks out of retirement to protect the daughter (Lucy Paez) she was forced to give up a dozen years ago.

It all begins with an interrogation. Lopez’s the Mother—her character, a womb with balls, has no name—slouches elegantly in some messy safe house somewhere, staring down a couple of no-nonsense FBI interrogators. She glowers from the cocoon of her artfully ragged cashmere hoodie as they pepper her with questions. Where are the two dangerous arms dealers she’s been tangling with? Was she really romantically involved with both of them? At the same time, even? Before the tough-guy feds can get answers, possible baby daddy number one (Joseph Fiennes) crashes their pad and attempts to blow them to smithereens. One of the agents (Omari Hardwick) nearly succumbs to his wounds, until the Mother, thinking quickly as mothers do, mends the gaping hole in his side by squirting some household glue in there. Then she retreats to the bathroom to fashion a Molotov cocktail from a bottle of tea tree shampoo, crouching in the shower as she awaits the man she knows is coming for her. By this point we see that she’s tremendously pregnant, and she’ll protect this baby at all costs. Woe betide Adrian, who dares jab at her stomach with a knife. Her tea-tree bomb burns him to a crisp. Or does it?

The Mother. (L to R) Jennifer Lopez as The Mother, Lucy Paez as Zoe in The Mother. Cr. Doane Gregory/Netflix © 2023.

Read more: The 16 Best J. Lo Movies of All Time

The Mother would, of course, like to keep this baby, but the FBI whisks the infant away shortly after she’s born. There’s nothing left for the newly bereft Mother to do but retreat to Alaska, where a former colleague ( Paul Raci ) offers her shelter in a shabby-chic decrepit cabin. There, she lives a quiet and solitary life, blamming deer and other wildlife for sustenance. Years pass, with nary a delivery from FreshDirect. Then she gets word that her daughter, Zoe, now 12, may be in danger. The trek to save her offspring takes the Mother from Alaska to Cincinnati to Cuba, where she encounters possible baby daddy number two (Gael García Bernal), who now appears to be both sinister and crazy: he’s sequestered himself in a temple of religious candles and guns. The Mother is having none of it—isn’t it time he got a real job?—and Hector, too, meets a bad end.

Snowmobile chases, knife fights, J.Lo kicking the asses of anyone who threatens her tiny nuclear family: If that sounds like fun, it is, but almost in spite of itself. Director Niki Caro (Whale Rider, Mulan) approaches the material reverently, as a parable about the strength of women. In one of the movie’s most compelling scenes, the Mother lectures Zoe, a sullen preteen who has no idea how good she has it, on the damage tofu has wrought upon the world. This is some pretty tough love.

The Mother. Jennifer Lopez as The Mother in The Mother. Cr. Ana Carballosa/Netflix © 2023.

But how can we not laugh—with joy, not derision—when we see our favorite mom hunting stag in Alaska while wearing the lushest fur-trimmed hood this side of Fendi? Lopez is a marvelous actor, appealing in ways that go beyond any analysis of technique. As the shamelessly out-for-herself dancer Ramona in the 2019 Hustlers, she revealed layers of vulnerability beneath her character’s hard-shell veneer, and she brings her A-game champagne-bubble charm offensive even to low-stakes, low-key comedies like Marry Me. The Mother would be more effective if she could wink at the audacity of the material instead of just playing it all straight. But then, Lopez can get away with things that other mere mortals can’t, and if you approach it in the right spirit, The Mother could be ridiculously good fun. It needs to be watched with the largest group of J.Lo fans you can assemble, ideally people who know artfully applied highlighter when they see it in the wild. Forget automatic weapons; it’s the Beauty Blender that gets the job done.

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The Mother review: Jennifer Lopez packs a punch in a film that doesn't

Jlo uses her particular set of skills to search for her kidnapped daughter in a generic actioner from mulan director niki caro.

In the pantheon of female assassin films, many have shown grit and gravitas, but only a handful have nailed their targets. This is especially true in the case of original features for the streaming services. While recent international offerings from Netflix—like Kill Boksoon and Furies — have demonstrated a modicum of mettle, splashy English-language releases—like Gunpowder Milkshake and Kate — have proven frustrating and far from thrilling. And although director Niki Caro’s The Mother ranks as one of streaming’s stronger action titles, alongside Lou , it also sticks to a straightforward formula. It’s decent but a tad too restrained for its own good.

The Mother review: Is Jennifer Lopez's Netflix movie worth a look?

It's available to watch now.

preview for The Mother - Official Trailer (Netflix)

Lopez plays the mother of the title – a former soldier/assassin whose name we never learn – who we first meet when she is being held in a safe house by FBI agents quizzing her about her two ex-boyfriends, evil gun runners Adrian Lovell (Joseph Fiennes) and Hector Alvarez (Gael García Bernal).

Of course, the safe house isn’t safe at all, and before she can tell them anything, armed men have shot the place up and Lovell has cornered our heroine in the bathroom, where he spots her large pregnancy bump and stabs it, just to prove what a truly bad baddie he is. Luckily, The Mother escapes when he is engulfed in flames from a little explosion she created using a few cleaning products and a candle (she’s a very resourceful former assassin, in case you hadn’t guessed) and goes on to safely have her baby. And that’s all in the first 10 minutes.

omari hardwick, jennifer lopez, the mother

Jump forward 12 years and The Mother is living in the wilds of Alaska, having given up her baby girl for adoption to keep her safe. Her only friend at the FBI, agent Cruise (Omari Hardwick), warns her that her daughter Zoe (Lucy Paez) is in danger, however, forcing her to come out of hiding to protect the child she has never met, and to confront those bad guys – either of whom could be Zoe’s dad.

From here, the smartly-paced story takes Cruise and The Mother to Cuba in search of Alvarez, and a tongue-in-cheek chase through the streets is thrown in, involving every obstacle you can think of, from nuns and a funeral procession to a wedding and a group of school kids, before it reaches its hilarious conclusion with a bad guy flying through the sky in slow motion at the same time as a tossed wedding bouquet.

We also get that staple of many a revenge action film, the training sequence, when The Mother and Zoe are back in the snowy wilds and mum teaches daughter how to survive using guns and knives, as well as how to drive should the bad guys come after them again. No prizes for guessing whether those life lessons come in handy later on.

As you may have realised, it’s all pretty predictable – the biggest surprise is how underused Bernal, Fiennes and The Sopranos ' Edie Falco (in a blink and you’ll miss it role) are – and at times, it’s quite preposterous, too.

But that’s part of the fun, whether you’re wondering how The Mother can speed off from a crime scene littered with bodies without the police chasing her, or puzzling why she and Cruise are sent into Cuba alone without any FBI backup to take out a whole gang of heavily trained, gun-toting thugs by themselves.

Happily, the movie never takes itself too seriously (and we shouldn’t either) and never pretends to be anything more than what it is – an action thriller that is a showcase for Jennifer Lopez.

And as that, it works brilliantly. Lopez – who rarely gets the acting credit she deserves – is extremely watchable as the resourceful, protective and even brutal (she hits people with a fist wrapped in barbed wire!) heart of the movie, and her scenes with screen daughter Paez are enjoyably unsentimental, too.

While we could have done with a bit more scene-chewing from a growling Joseph Fiennes, in the end this is Lopez’s movie from start to finish, and if you're on board for that, The Mother is an enjoyably daft action movie treat.

The Mother is available to watch on Netflix now.

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Freelance film & TV writer, Digital Spy Critic and writer Jo Berry has been writing about TV and movies since she began her career at Time Out aged 18. A regular on BBC Radio, Jo has written for titles including Empire, Maxim, Radio Times , OK! , The Guardian and Grazia , is the author of books including Chick Flicks and The Parents’ Guide to Kids’ Movies .

She is also the editor of website Movies4Kids . In her career, Jo has interviewed well-known names including Beyonce, Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Kiefer Sutherland, Tom Cruise and all the Avengers, spent many an hour crushed in the press areas of award show red carpets. Jo is also a self-proclaimed expert on Outlander and Brassic , and completely agrees that Die Hard is a Christmas movie .

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Mother’ on Netflix, a Jennifer Lopez Action Vehicle That Skids Too Far Off the Road

Where to stream:.

The Mother (2023)

Jennifer Lopez

‘The View’s Ana Navarro Compares Jennifer Lopez To Elizabeth Taylor Amid Divorce Rumors: “She’s Addicted To Marriage”

9 mother’s day movies on netflix in 2024 to celebrate moms, whoopi goldberg confronts her ‘view’ co-hosts after nearly all of them fail to carry out guest j. lo’s request: “how come y’all weren’t dancing” , jennifer lopez sets the record straight on ‘the view’ after alyssa farah griffin asks about her matching valentine’s tattoos with ben affleck: “we did not” .

In the true spirit of Mother’s Day, this weekend we get Jennifer Lopez gunning down a bunch of faceless bad guys in The Mother (now on Netflix). She also has A Moment with a mother wolf, you know, one of those moments where you lock eyes with a four-legged snarling anxious dangerous predator, and you both nod in unspoken acknowledgment of your shared instinct to protect your offspring at any cost. J-Lo is a credited producer of this ridiculous and violent genre outing, and teams up with director Niki Caro, who you’ll recall broke through with 2002’s Whale Rider and most recently showed some rock-solid action-movie chops via the battle sequences in 2020’s live-action Mulan remake. The Mother is the type of movie Stallone would’ve headlined in 1989, save for the feminine angle, which, fingers crossed, hopefully gives it a bit of depth. Let’s find out.

THE MOTHER : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: DAWN. AN FBI SAFEHOUSE IN INDIANA. A character only known as The Mother (J-Lo) is an informant on an arms deal and she’s telling the living shit out of the FBI agents that the bad guys know where they are and they’re coming and some of them are gonna die and that’s exactly what happens. This nasty-nasty named Lovell (Joseph Fiennes) backs her into a shower stall and this is when there’s a very highly dramatic reveal: She’s pregnant. Oh man. And how nasty-nasty is Lovell? He whips out a knife and stabs her right in the abdomen. But he can’t finish the job because her improvised explosive goes WHOOMP and burns half of Lovell’s face off.

Now, I’ve already tipped my hand with regards to what kind of movie this is, but this is the turning point, the tone-setting stretch of film that determines where it lands on the absurd-o-meter. The Mother awakens in the hospital. She’s OK. Her baby daughter is OK. And Lovell – well, he’s going to return with a mottled eye and really cool spiderweb of scars on his mug. Absurd-o-meter: we’re at about an 8. Edie Falco walks into the hospital room and informs The Mother that she’s far too wanted by the bad guys to keep the child, and here’s what she’s gonna do. She’s gonna sign the paperwork giving the girl up for adoption and then she’s gonna disappear and her days as a mercenary sniper assassin cold-blooded damn killer are over, and that’s that. She’s not happy about it but she takes one last look at the baby through the nursery window and we cut to her getting off a boat in Moosescat, Alaska. She holes up in a cabin and a subtitle reads 12 YEARS LATER and she’s still there.

Per the agreement, The Mother has been getting photos and updates on the girl. She’s been palling around with her pal and fellow war vet Jons (Paul Raci of The Sound of Metal ) and also killing her own food, so we know her shooting skills haven’t waned. Might she need them for any reason beyond hunting? Hmm. And wouldn’t you know it, just when she thought she was out, you know the rest. The bad guys are planning a heist, and The Mother’s daughter Zoe (Lucy Paez), who’s very happy with her adopted parents and sneakers with the skates in the heels, is the haul. The Mother and FBI guy Cruise (Omari Hardwick) get to work, chasing the villains – Gael Garcia Bernal turns up as one of them – all over hell and yonder to get Zoe back. The Mother shows what’s inside her when she tries to get the girl’s location by pummeling a thug with barbed wire wrapped around her fist. Donald Rumsfeld would be thrilled to learn that her controversial interrogation technique works, and she extracts Zoe and takes her to Alaska, where she trains the kid to shoot and stab and appreciate her fresh rabbit stew. Meanwhile, the girl shows a remarkable ability to not freak out about the fact that her birth mother is an utterly humorless badass slayer of men. There’s no time for psychotrauma when there’s several more action sequences to work your way through!

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The Mother is Taken meets the snowmobile chase in xXx meets the awesome lady action of Salt or Haywire .

Performance Worth Watching: Lopez hasn’t been this feisty since Enough . (She was even more feisty in Hustlers , but that movie is on an entirely different level than this genre fare.) Too bad the screenplay here is so thin and disinterested in character nuance, because she does her damnedest to give The Mother some depth when she has the rare opportunity to do so.

Memorable Dialogue: Jons sums up The Mother: “A woman like that – you gotta pay attention to what she does , not what she says .”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: The Mother shows no ambition beyond being a collection of action set pieces strung together by a sloppy plot that really wants to be about the Protective Power of Momhood, but is far more invested in shootouts and chases. The lock-eyes-with-the-mama-wolf stuff is played dead-serious, and it ends up being deadly unintentionally funny. Same goes for the sequence in which The Mother apparently read ahead in the script so she’d know exactly when the bad guys would re-snatch Zoe, allowing her to skid into the frame on a Harley Fat Boy just in the nick. Style trumps sense every time – and although Caro’s muscular style exhibits moments of flair and vibrancy, it’s not savvy enough to distract us from this murky, slapped-together story.

So what we’ve got here is a boilerplate action saga starring J-Lo as a tanktop-ballcap-and-aviators asskicker who never smiles ever and is capable of gritting her teeth and slamming her shoulder into a rock to pop it back into the socket. What, they couldn’t fit in a scene where she cauterizes her own bullet wound with a hot knife or some gunpowder and a lighter? This movie is uncompromisingly silly, unbelievable and incredible in the sense that you won’t believe a second of it and none of it is credible, from the psychological contents of its characters to its abdication of the laws of physics.

The screenplay introduces and disregards supporting characters with abandon, gives Fiennes very little to do as the villain and renders our protagonist a boilerplate cliche of an action hero with one dangling thread of vulnerability to tug on. She kills and kills and kills and shows no remorse, no inner conflict. But because she’s The Mother, and so fiercely devoted to being that, we’re essentially asked to ignore the fact that she’s a sociopath. In that sense, the film is a throwback to simpler times, when action heroes just did what they had to do and put their mental health in a jar and hid it in the darkest corner of the pantry. Granted, not every piece of entertainment needs to be a grandiose statement about the tragedy of the human condition, but I like to think we’ve elevated our standards for thematic content in movies – or at least enough visual wizardry and storytelling finesse to be an adequately entertaining diversion, which The Mother doesn’t quite achieve.

Our Call: And on top of that, The Mother just isn’t as fun as it wants or needs to be. SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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Review: Jennifer Lopez goes full Liam Neeson in the revenge thriller ‘The Mother’

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‘The Mother’

Jennifer Lopez plays a classic “hero with no name”-type in “The Mother,” a revenge thriller in which her character is an underworld assassin trained by the U.S. military. In the movie’s opening sequence, the heavily pregnant heroine reluctantly cooperates with the FBI on an operation that goes horribly awry. She delivers her baby prematurely and is persuaded by the government to give the child up for adoption and go into hiding. But 12 years later, the Mother gets word from a trusted FBI source (Omari Hardwick) that her daughter, Zoe (Lucy Paez), is being targeted by some of her bitterest enemies — a ruthless ex-boss (Joseph Fiennes) and a sadistic gun runner (Gael Garcia Bernal).

“The Mother” is ostensibly an action movie, though Lopez (who is also a producer on this film) and director Niki Caro include plenty of quieter scenes of maternal bonding amid all the chases and shootouts in Misha Green’s script (co-written with Andrea Berloff and Peter Craig). To keep Zoe safe, the Mother takes her deep into the snowy wilderness to teach her survival skills. The pair warm to each other as they work on tracking and shooting.

Caro — best-known for the Oscar-nominated “Whale Rider” and “North Country” — effectively contrasts the open landscapes of the Mother’s hideaway with the constrictions of the parking garages, hallways, city streets and cluttered crime lairs where she plies her trade. The basic contours of this story are well worn (flip the main character’s gender and this could easily be a Liam Neeson picture ). And the stakes are generic with a vague concept of “motherhood” as the heroine’s main objective. But from scene to scene, Lopez and Caro do fill these broad outlines with real feeling, bringing a personal touch to old pulp archetypes.

‘“he Mother.” Rated R for violence, some language and brief drug use. 1 hour, 55 minutes. Available on Netflix; also playing theatrically, Bay Theater, Pacific Palisades

‘The Five Devils’

French filmmaker Léa Mysius finds a fascinatingly fresh way to introduce flashbacks into her arty drama “The Five Devils.” A young girl named Vicky (Sally Dramé), bullied at school, obsessively retreats into her favorite hobby: using a mix of ingredient gathering and witchcraft to replicate other people’s scents, which she stores in glass jars. While capturing the particular aromas of her mother Joanne ( Adèle Exarchopoulos ) and her aunt Julia (Swala Emati), Vicky begins having visions of these two women’s tragic history together as competitive athletes whose forbidden lust caused a scandal and destroyed lives in their picturesque mountain town.

Mysius and her co-writer Paul Guilhaume use Vicky’s mystical powers as a way not just to tell Joanne and Julia’s story, but to explore its repercussions in the modern day, where Vicky — a product of the choices Joanne and Julia made — is treated as an outcast and even a bit of a burden. “The Five Devils” saves some of the juiciest revelations for its final act, which can make the comparatively coy first hour feel frustratingly oblique at times. But this alluring and sneakily emotional film is never confusing, because its primary focus is on how Vicky’s family keeps trying in vain to shield her from their mistakes. Instead, their regret remains palpable, clinging to them like a stench.

“The Five Devils.” In French with subtitles. Not rated. 1 hour, 36 minutes. Available on Mubi

There are echoes of “The Goonies” and “Tomorrowland” in “Crater,” a kid-friendly take on dystopian science-fiction. Directed by Kyle Patrick Alvarez from a John Griffin screenplay (with a story credit for Rpin Suwannath), the film follows five teens living on a lunar mining colony run by an exploitative bureaucracy. While exploring some of the moon’s forbidden zones, the kids stumble across old construction projects containing remnants of the shinier future that Earth’s population had once been promised.

Because it’s aimed at a younger audience, “Crater” skews sugary, in ways that conflict with the bitterness inherent in its premise. The movie is also a little low on action, despite the heroes dancing on the edge of danger throughout. That said, sometimes it’s nice to see something so … nice. There’s an infectious quality to these young explorers’ optimism in the face of the seemingly no-win situation into which most of them were born. In a clever use of metaphor, the filmmakers have built an appealing world of wonders, hidden below the moon’s barren surface — suggesting there are fragments of hope embedded within even the grimmest landscapes.

“Crater.” Rated PG for thematic material, action/peril and language. 1 hour, 45 minutes. Available on Disney+

Also on VOD

“Air” recounts the entertaining and surprisingly suspenseful tale of how Nike became a major player in the athletic shoe market in the 1980s by forging an innovative business partnership with the then-promising basketball star Michael Jordan. Director Ben Affleck — who also stars as Nike boss Phil Knight — brings the same verve to this picture that he brought to his Oscar-winning “Argo,” while Affleck’s old friend and creative partner Matt Damon adds his everyman charisma to the role of marketing guru Sonny Vaccaro. Available on Prime Video; also playing theatrically in general release

“Employee of the Month” is a darker (and Belgian) update of “9 to 5,” telling the story of two harried female office workers (played by Jasmina Douieb and Laetitia Mampaka) who exact revenge on their crude, chauvinistic, corner-cutting boss (Peter Van den Begin), and then find themselves having to run the company secretly to cover up what they’ve done. Writer-director Véronique Jadin and co-writer Nina Vanspranghe go broad and hard with the comedy, skewering the many varieties of jerky guys who can ruin a workday. Available on VOD

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‘The Mother’ Review: Jennifer Lopez Kicks Ass in Bumpy Action-Packed Revenge Movie

Though JLo is fun to watch, this Netflix film falls short of being truly great.

While the instinct for revenge is one of the easiest, most human character motivations to understand in film, the popular subgenre is in no way a straight line. Distinguished through its complex, multilayered goals that run through a deep cut of emotions, the need for revenge from a sharp class of anti-heroes has become one of the most enticing forms of storytelling. Though there are movies that stand out in the genre like Kill Bill: Vol. 1 or The Nightingale , Netflix’s latest offering, The Mother starring Jennifer Lopez , is one that comes pretty close to being an adept action-packed thriller featuring a female lead hell-bent on revenge. But as the film showcases Lopez in a more intense light outside her bubbly rom-com sweetness to kick major ass, the character-driven action epic from director Niki Caro is at times imbalanced and lacks subtlety. Yet, like its lead, it manages to get the job done.

In the film, which clocks in at almost two hours, Lopez stars as a deadly female assassin simply known as “The Mother” on the run from two very dangerous men, arms dealers Adrian Lovell ( Joseph Fiennes ) and Hector Àlvarez ( Gael García Bernal ). In the film’s opening sequence, we also learn in a shocking plot twist that one of the men is the father of her unborn child. Looking to make things right, The Mother teams up with the FBI but fails to assassinate Adrian for them, whom she also served in Afghanistan with as he was her former captain from a cavalry and sniper regiment. Seeking help from the bureau while holed up in a safe house somewhere in Indiana, the debriefing goes awry and a bloodbath ensues, with Adrian’s team killing every agent except William Cruise ( Omari Hardwick ), who is saved by The Mother after one very thoughtful gesture during their cross-examination.

After the two make it out, The Mother entrusts William with her newborn baby, asking him to find the child a safe, boring home. Requesting he update her every year and only call when trouble ensues, it’s 12 years later that William reveals photographs of Zoe, also known as The Daughter ( Lucy Paez ), have been found in the men’s belongings following internal investigations suggesting that both Adrian and Hector know her child is alive. In keeping a close eye on her daughter from afar and her sharpshooting sniper expertise in full swing, The Mother attempts to stop her daughter’s abduction but fails, teaming up with William to get her back. Frustrated by the two using her daughter as leverage to draw her out, her maternal instincts are amplified as a protective, dangerous force to anyone in her way that threatens her child.

With the film flipping the script on the typical revenge thriller that normally focuses on male leads, The Mother does something very different in rewriting the genre by placing a complex woman into that kind of world. While Lopez has never headlined a movie of this magnitude with its global attractions all in one, she does a great job of personifying The Mother and giving her enough nuance for audiences to be intrigued by her every move. She is absolutely magnetic to watch. Getting to see her do a film like this where she is taking names and kicking ass is fun and exciting, and something she could definitely do more of. Thanks to the writing giving her a lot to work with in terms of an intimate, emotional story placed in an ambitious high-octane world, Lopez balances the inner demons of her character while repairing the broken relationship she has with Zoe. Additionally, in reflecting on how we never learn The Mother’s real name, one can’t help but wonder if the multitalented star’s characterization of this unnamed, strong maternal archetype alludes to the instinct and impulse every mother could potentially see in herself for a connection to the audience.

However, while Lopez is good and the best part of this movie, there are times you can see she is holding back, and some scenes just feel more put on than anything. In some ways, it’s as if she’s just scratching the surface of what she can really do. She’s absolutely phenomenal when she lets loose. While she has great chemistry with her on-screen daughter, Paez, the same can’t be said for her time spent in scenes with Hardwick, Fiennes, and Bernal. In all honesty, The Mother would not work if it didn’t have Lopez in it. With a script written by a team of incredibly talented screenwriters in Misha Green ( Lovecraft Country ), Andrea Berloff ( The Kitchen ), and Peter Craig ( The Town ), it feels like there was too much happening and a lot got missed out on. It’s a good story with a lot of potential, but there are also some undercooked elements that cannot be ignored. The villains were just not strong enough and more a testament to the writing as the actors could only do what they are given.

Fiennes was decent as a villain but in many ways, fell into that James Bond cliché, especially after a fire physically scars one side of his face. We don’t get to see more of why we need to hate him, nor any kind of backstory without The Mother in check to understand his motives, his feelings, and why he is the big baddie. Yes, we learn about all the gross, heinous things he does starting with stabbing The Mother when pregnant even knowing the child could be his. But that is through the eyes of The Mother only. In fact, Adrian and Hector are villains only when in scenes with The Mother, but they don’t exist for our understanding outside her purview. While that might not be intentional per the writing, it comes off imbalanced as there is no fleshing out the others outside of Lopez’s character.

The same goes for Bernal, who is incredible in everything he does. However, while he gave this performance his all as the creepy contractor The Mother meets in Guantánamo Bay, there is just not enough of him to bother about. In fact, remove him from the equation as a character, and we could have had more screen time to flesh out a stronger dynamic between The Mother and Adrian. As for Hardwick, he is charming and appealing to watch, especially as he shares scenes with Lopez and really rises to the occasion to support her character. But there is just not enough of him and a lot that makes you wonder, how come we didn’t get to see more? In conversations between The Mother and Zoe, and the pre-teen’s interactions with William, we learn he’s an avuncular character in her life. But that very relationship creates plot holes and the question of how much Zoe’s adoptive family knows about who this child really is. Though Hardwick’s William puts it all on the line to help protect Zoe, he also has an underlying relationship with The Mother that deserves some more exploring, especially in how he cares for her daughter and what it means to her.

Paez as The Mother’s daughter Zoe is definitely one to watch. The young actress gave a stunning performance that is open and responsive to Lopez’s of a child thrown into a world that is chaotic and muddled with darkness. It is no doubt challenging to find an actor that young to balance the global megastar’s enduring magnetism but Paez manages most wonderfully to challenge the star in scenes that carry immense emotional weight, which helps really elevate the story and understanding of the love between a mother and daughter.

The Mother is one of those movies that starts off great and has these wildly fun moments but then lags at certain spots. There are a whole host of bumpy pacing issues as these characters trot off to exotic locales around the world, including snowy vistas in Alaska, simmering sunshine in Cuba, and the rugged terrains of the Afghanistan mountains. The film has some amazing action sequences, including a thrilling chase around Cuba that rivals The Bourne Identity and a one-to-one combat scene between Lopez and Fiennes that will have you at the edge of your seat.

Yet as the movie soars with its action, it runs flat in certain spots and ends up being bumpy as it tries to get back on track. While these kinds of movies usually offer some level of catharsis, don’t expect that here because the conclusion is a bit abrupt. With the villains not being strong enough and a character like Bernal’s more like a flash in the pan, there are parts of The Mother that just seem unnecessary but are only saved by Lopez. Caro, who has directed movies like Whale Rider and Mulan usually does a fine job in her films, but it seems like even with the writing, she couldn’t pull things together for a more cohesive, compelling story. The Mother might feel like something we’ve seen before with revenge movies , but it still works without feeling like a cookie-cutter of its predecessors. The film is good, but never manages to be great and suffers from some missteps that drag itself into an average range that leaves you feeling mildly disappointed. The Mother might seem like an incredulous story, but it’s Lopez who elevates it to a level of watchability and is believable as a mother who sets out to do anything for her child.

Rating : C+

The Mother begins streaming May 12 on Netflix.

‘The Mother’: Jennifer Lopez can do it all — except play a convincing mercenary

Her heroics, as an expert operative showing her daughter how to kill, strain credulity in dumb netflix action movie..

A former Army sniper (Jennifer Lopez) and her daughter (Lucy Paez) hide out in Alaska and await an attack by hitmen in “The Mother.”

I’m not going to spoil the epilogue in the slick but trashy and quite dumb Jennifer Lopez action movie “The Mother,” but I will say it’s so insanely off the rails, so bat-bleep crazy that I almost want you to watch “The Mother” just so you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Lopez has always been a force as a physical performer. And she has shown zero trace of slowing down in recent films such as “Hustlers” and “Shotgun Wedding.”

But she stretches credulity here as a former Army sniper in Afghanistan who turned to mercenary work after leaving the military and was forced to go into hiding after becoming a government witness and singlehandedly taking down a phalanx of hitmen who tried to take her out. And that’s just the lead-up to the real action!

“The Mother” opens in an FBI safe house in Linton, Indiana, where Lopez’ character, who is never named so we’re stuck calling her The Mother, is being questioned by a team of agents led by Omari Hardwick’s tough but sympathetic William Cruise. The Mother is being held in protective custody while giving up the goods on two ruthless arms dealers with whom she was recently involved with in more ways than one: Hector Álvarez (Gael García Bernal) and Adrian Lovell (Joseph Fiennes). That’s right: The Mother is pregnant, and one of those two notorious international criminals is the father. What a pickle.

‘Hypnotic’: Ben Affleck’s sci-fi thriller builds to a slam-bang twist ending

The Mother keeps telling the agents this house is anything but safe, but they brush off her warnings—until shots ring out and a team of hitmen, led by Lovell, come storming in. With the house about to go up in flames, The Mother kills all the henchmen, saves William’s life, survives a stab wound and wakes up in the hospital after giving birth. Enter Edie Falco’s Special Agent Williams, who has The Mother sign away her parental rights. It’s the only way to protect the child from the evil Lovell and a whole new group of henchmen who have been waiting for their moment after graduating from Henchmen Class.

Cut to Tlingit Bay, Alaska, where The Mother takes up residence in a remote cabin and remains off the grid for 12 years, keeping herself in peak physical shape and making meaningful eye contact with wolves while hunting her own food and spending her spare time, I don’t know, brooding? When William receives intel indicating Lovell has uncovered the girl’s identity, he makes good on his promise to The Mother to let her know if the child, Zoe, is ever in danger.

Time now for one of the expertly staged and exciting but absolutely nuts action sequences in “The Mother,” in this case, Lovell’s hitmen crashing an outdoor birthday party in broad daylight to kidnap Zoe (Lucy Paez), which leads to a chaotic shootout and a wild chase scene in a parking garage. Somehow, the kidnappers get away and whisk Zoe to Cuba, where The Mother got mixed up in all that arms-dealing craziness all those years ago. Once The Mother and William arrive in Cuba, they capture one of Lovell’s men and hold him prisoner, with The Mother uses torture tactics (“You learn things in the service,” says The Mother with a shrug) to get the snarling guy to give up Zoe’s whereabouts.

After a surreal encounter with Gael García’s Bernal’s Hector that plays out like something from an Oliver Stone movie—the man has clearly lost his marbles and has all the candles flickering in his fortress—The Mother rescues Zoe, and she and William and Zoe work their way to Moline, Illinois (shoutout Moline!), and eventually it’s just The Mother and Zoe back in Alaska, where Zoe whines and complains and behaves like a spoiled brat but can you blame her, while The Mother teaches Zoe how to drive and how to shoot and how to survive, because Lovell and his men will be coming for them one day.

At times “The Mother” flashes of a wicked sense of humor, as when Zoe asks about the mystery meat dish in front of her—which came from an animal The Mother trapped in the wild, killed and cooked.

“[It’s] rabbit,” explains The Mother. “Thumper.”

“I’m not eating a rabbit…” says Zoe.

“Listen to me,” comes the reply. “That rabbit had a better life than any cheeseburger you ever ate.”

She’s not wrong.

It’s only a matter of time before Lovell and his dozens of heavily armed marksmen in their matching paramilitary outfits come roaring up. Little do they know It’s Take Your Child to Work Day on The Mother’s compound, and they’ll be facing not one, but two trained killers. Good luck with that, Lovell!

More From Forbes

Netflix: jennifer lopez ai thriller among new movies on streaming service this week.

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Jennifer Lopez in "Atlas."

Atlas —Jennifer Lopez’s latest movie—is among the new and previously released films debuting on the streaming service this week.

A Netflix original movie, Atlas stars Lopez as Agent Atlas Shepherd, a data analyst who has zero trust in artificial intelligence. Atlas is forced to embrace AI, though, when she needs to utilize the technology to catch Harlan (Simi Liu)—a rogue robot who was created to advance humanity that is now threatening to destroy it after failing in a previous attempt.

Atlas is directed by Brad Peyton, who previously directed Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in the action-adventure hits Rampage and San Andreas .

Also starring Sterling K. Brown, Lana Parilla and Mark Strong, Atlas premieres on Netflix on Friday.

‘A Simple Favor’ (2018)

Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively star in A Simple Favor , a crime comedy mystery movie by Bridesmaids and Spy director Paul Feig.

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Kendrick plays Stephanie, a widowed mother and vlogger who befriends a high-society PR agent, Emily (Lively) when their sons become friends in school. After Emily goes missing, Stephanie investigates her new friend’s disappearance and gets caught up in some complicated relationship issues along the way.

According to box office tracker The Numbers , A Simple Favor was a hit at the worldwide box office earning $97.6 million against a $20 million budget.

The film was also embraced by Rotten Tomatoes critics, earning an 84% “fresh” rating based on 257 reviews and a 73% positive Audience Score based on verified ratings from 5,000-plus registered users of the site.

Also starring Henry Golding, A Simple Favor debuts Sunday on Netflix.

Illusions for Sale: The Rise and Fall of Generation Zoe (2024)

Also new on the streamer this week is the Netflix original documentary Illusions for Sale: The Rise and Fall of Generation Zoe .

The logline from Netflix reads, “In a world where the pandemic has wreaked havoc, a world steeped in frustration and uncertainty, a man comes along to shake up the markets—and people's consciousness—with an initiative that encompasses education, the financial sphere, and spiritual development.

“ Illusions for Sale: The Rise and Fall of Generation Zoe depicts the genesis, the growth, and the collapse of Latin America's most bizarre and ambitious financial platform, itself an accurate portrait of its eccentric creator, Leonardo Cositorto.”

Illusions for Sale: The Rise and Fall of Generation Zoe , premieres on Netflix on Thursday.

‘Butterfly In The Sky: The Story of Reading Rainbow’ (2022)

Produced in 2022, the documentary was originally titled Butterfly in the Sky when it debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2023 and has been retitled Butterfly in the Sky: The Story of Reading Rainbow for its debut on Netflix.

The film chronicles the incredible story of the classic PBS educational program hosted by LeVar Burton, which featured 155 episodes in its initial run from 1983 to 2006.

Burton is naturally featured in the documentary, which recalls the run of the beloved children's series that taught kids about the joy of reading. In addition to Burton, the documentary features insights from actors Whoopi Goldberg, Alisa Reyes and Kenny Blank, as well as director Dean Parisot and key creatives involved in the Reading Rainbow series.

Butterfly in the Sky: The Story of Reading Rainbow premieres on Netflix on Friday.

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Mother of the bride, common sense media reviewers.

Romcom about finding unexpected love; drinking, language.

Mother of the Bride movie poster: Brooke Shields stands with the wedding party.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Weddings should be about family and love. People d

Parents will do anything to support their children

The film is set mostly at a resort in Phuket, Thai

People fall down and a man is hit in the groin wit

Kissing and flirting. Naked bodies are seen from b

"Damn," "dammit," "ass," "jackass," "hell," "crap,

Phuket is on lovely display. Discovery Resorts, In

Adults drink alcohol, sometimes to the point of ne

Positive Messages

Weddings should be about family and love. People deserve second chances. Things aren't always what they appear. You don't have to be young to have fun.

Positive Role Models

Parents will do anything to support their children. Lana is a world-renowned geneticist. Emma faces her reservations about her wedding.

Diverse Representations

The film is set mostly at a resort in Phuket, Thailand. Southeast Asian actors are secondary characters. The father of the groom and family are Latino, which inspires a couple of Spanish expressions and a joke that the bride and mother of the bride have a "type." The uncle of the groom is a gay man in a happily committed, long-term relationship.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

People fall down and a man is hit in the groin with a pickleball. A young woman's father died in a car accident when she was 8.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Kissing and flirting. Naked bodies are seen from behind (and a naked man covering his privates from the front). Adults go skinny dipping. There's reference to cheating, a man's "pickle," and some objectifying of a man as a "young stud."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

"Damn," "dammit," "ass," "jackass," "hell," "crap," "Satan," "stupid," "jerk," "idiot," "pee."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Phuket is on lovely display. Discovery Resorts, Instagram, Mac. Two families appear to have unlimited funds.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Adults drink alcohol, sometimes to the point of nearly passing out and having a hangover. They tell a college story involving buying a keg with a fake ID.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Mother of the Bride is a romantic comedy starring Brooke Shields , Benjamin Bratt , and Miranda Cosgrove that's set in Phuket, Thailand and contains some swearing, drinking, and suggestive scenes. Adults kiss, flirt, and comment on appearances, including objectifying a man as a "young stud," and referring to a man's "pickle." Naked bodies are seen from behind when a group of old college friends go skinny dipping. In another scene, a man emerges naked from a shower and covers his privates with a hat. Adults drink alcohol to the point of having a hangover. Language includes "damn," "dammit," "ass," "jackass," "hell," "crap," and some mild insults. The father of the groom and family are Latino, which inspires a couple of Spanish expressions and a joke that the bride and mother of the bride have a "type." To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

Parents say (1)

Based on 1 parent review

Siily but cute

What's the story.

Brooke Shields becomes the MOTHER OF THE BRIDE when she finds out her daughter Emma ( Miranda Cosgrove , of iCarly fame) is getting married in Thailand in a month. A world-renowned geneticist in San Francisco, Lana (Shields) drops everything to fly to be with her daughter and meet the fiancé, RJ ( Sean Teale ). Adding more surprises to the scenario, RJ's dad turns out to be Lana's college love, Will ( Benjamin Bratt ), the one who got away. At the Thai resort, sparks will fly between the former lovers, but these will be complicated by misunderstandings, a new love interest in fellow California doctor Lucas ( Chad Michael Murray ), and their new in-law relationship.

Is It Any Good?

The streaming platforms have assembled a small cottage industry of films about middle-aged women finding second chances at love, and Brooke Shields could easily become a star of the genre. She brings with her to films like Mother of the Bride an audience of women her age who grew up admiring her. Trouble is, if the films seem like toss-aways -- as A Castle for Christmas unfortunately did -- she could risk losing those followers. Mother is a notch above that one, though it does feel like a knock-off of the Julia Roberts and George Clooney -led Ticket to Paradise in both story (former couple reunited at a child's wedding) and Southeast Asian setting.

As in that film, Mother sees its middle-aged characters reminiscing and reliving some of the excitement of their youth. These are likable scenes set to period tunes like the Go-Go's. A pickleball scene (one of the first on film??) is also very funny. But other meant-to-be-funny scenarios fall flat, and comedian Rachael Harris goes sorely underused. The film also sets up a hard-to-believe premise of a young woman allowing corporate sponsors to make her wedding Instagrammable. Shields is stronger here in the dramatic moments than the comedy. Considering her past career, that may be more a problem with the writing than the acting. If you've watched Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields , you know the model-actress-mom has earned her maturity. Here's hoping for future films that give her more opportunities to show that side of her.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Emma giving her wedding over to her corporate sponsors in Mother of the Bride . Does this feel realistic? Does it make you question some of what you see on influencers' Instagram accounts?

The parents of the engaged couple seem to be reliving their youth. What other films have you seen where middle-aged adults reminisce about or relive their younger days?

The film is set mostly in a tourist resort in Phuket, Thailand. What do you know about this area? Where could you find more information?

Romcoms tend to be predictable. Does that matter, or is that just part of the experience?

Movie Details

On DVD or streaming : May 9, 2024
Cast : Brooke Shields , Benjamin Bratt , Miranda Cosgrove
Director : Mark Waters
Inclusion Information : Indigenous actors, Latino actors, Female actors, Female writers
Studio : Netflix
Genre : Romance
Topics : Brothers and Sisters , Friendship
Run time : 90 minutes
MPAA rating : NR
Last updated : May 5, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

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Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck 'Did Not Celebrate Mother's Day Together': Source

In a tribute to her mom on Mother's Day, Jennifer Lopez said her "resilience and fearlessness lives within my bones"

John Salangsang/Variety via Getty

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck "did not celebrate Mother's Day together," a source close to Lopez tells PEOPLE, as the pair continue to live separately amid marriage issues .

Lopez, 54, and Affleck, 51, have been residing apart from each other since Lopez returned to Los Angeles from New York City. She had been busy in New York City filming her movie Kiss of the Spider Woman , promoting her next movie Atlas, and co-chairing the 2024 Met Gala , which Affleck went absent from.

Affleck, meanwhile, has been filming a sequel to his 2016 movie The Accountant in Los Angeles in recent weeks and was most recently seen solo at Netflix’s May 5 live Roast of Tom Brady .

Lopez, who shares her 16-year-old twins Max and Emme with ex-husband Marc Anthony , shared two Instagram posts on Mother's Day noting her relationship with her kids and her own mom Guadalupe “Lupe” Rodríguez .

"Lulu and Max, I am here FOREVER to support you, encourage you, to remind you of your greatness of your goodness and your limitless capability. You. Can. Do. Anything," Lopez wrote in a caption to one post . "You are brilliant and beautiful and worthy of love and all the beautiful things in life. If you ever learn one thing from me, let it be that."

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In a second post, the Hustlers star shared a carousel of photos of her and her mother together, writing in a caption that she continually realizes "the sacrifices you made of yourself and your dreams to give us the opportunity and strength to live our own" as years pass by.

"I appreciate all of the songs you sang and the dancing in the living room and all the stories you told where I would hang on every word and then cry from laughter at how you told them," Lopez wrote.

"Thank you for the joy that you instilled in me. Your resilience and fearlessness lives within my bones and I am forever grateful for the beautiful times, and also for the inevitable difficult times as well."

Daniele Venturelli/WireImage; Charley Gallay/Getty Images for ELLE

Affleck — who shares Violet, 18, Seraphina, 15, and Samuel, 12, with ex-wife Jennifer Garner — and Lopez were spotted together in public May 16, as they attended an event for their kids in Los Angeles. They arrived separately but were both seen wearing their wedding rings as Affleck drove them home after.

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Movie Review: Brooke Shields and Benjamin Bratt deserve more than Netflix’s ‘Mother of the Bride’

This image released by Netflix shows Brooke Shields and Benjamin Bratt in a scene from “Mother of the Bride.” (Sasidis Sasisakulporn/Netflix via AP)

This image released by Netflix shows Chad Michael Murray and Brooke Shields in a scene from “Mother of the Bride.” (Sasidis Sasisakulporn/Netflix via AP)

This image released by Netflix shows Miranda Cosgrove, left, and Brooke Shields in a scene from “Mother of the Bride.” (Sasidis Sasisakulporn/Netflix via AP)

This image released by Netflix shows Brooke Shields and Rachael Harris in a scene from “Mother of the Bride.” (Sasidis Sasisakulporn/Netflix via AP)

This image released by Netflix shows Benjamin Bratt in a scene from “Mother of the Bride.” (Sasidis Sasisakulporn/Netflix via AP)

This image released by Netflix shows Sean Teale and Miranda Cosgrove in a scene from “Mother of the Bride.” (Sasidis Sasisakulporn/Netflix via AP)

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Romantic comedies are in a destination wedding rut. Perhaps it’s a collective post-COVID wanderlust kicking in, or, more cynically, some combination of tax credits and a place producers want to spend time. But between “ Ticket to Paradise ,” “Anyone But You,” “ Shotgun Wedding ” and now Netflix’s “ Mother of the Bride ,” the conceit is starting to curdle.

The problem is bigger than the setting, of course. There’s only so much heavy lifting a picturesque location, photogenic bodies and enviable resort outfits can do to make up for a lame story. Also, the appeal of an out-of-reach travelogue is limited in this age of influencers living wildly extravagant lifestyles around the clock on Instagram and TikTok (not to mention the sharp ways “White Lotus” has skewered and luxuriated in those worlds).

“Mother of the Bride,” now streaming on Netflix, wonders what might happen if you find out a few days before the wedding that your kid (Miranda Cosgrove) is marrying the offspring of the guy who broke your heart. That’s what happens to Brooke Shields’ Lana. She arrives in Phuket, Thailand, for her daughter’s wedding, meets the groom (Sean Teale), turns around and sees that his father is her college ex, Will (Benjamin Bratt). Barely a minute passes before they both fall into a pond.

Later, she’ll walk in on him emerging from the shower, hit him in a sensitive spot playing pickleball and, after they’ve made some progress, overhear the wrong conversation at the wrong time. This is a movie that is adhering to some kind of romantic comedy checklist, but whose ingredients add up to very little in the end.

Our tolerance for a silly set-up in a romantic comedy is usually pretty generous if we’re given a clever, charming script and authentic emotions. Just think of how ridiculous so many of the greats sound on paper, from “Sabrina” to “Sleepless in Seattle”? Is it fair to compare “Mother of the Bride” to Nora Ephron and Billy Wilder? Maybe not, but it never hurts to be aware of a North Star, which veterans like screenwriter Robin Bernheim Burger and director Mark Waters no doubt are. Just look at the title. This movie even has a romantic foil in a younger doctor (Chad Michael Murray) who is smitten with Lana, which can’t help but remind of Keanu Reeves in Nancy Meyers’ “Something’s Gotta Give.”

But this is so wildly contrived from the start that you never get to that moment where you’re enjoying it enough to stop asking questions, like did Lana never google Will in the 20 years they’ve been apart and find out that he’s a wildly rich and successful businessman? Or why would a major corporation offer an intern who has a barely maintained lifestyle Instagram that she started freshman year of college “six figures” to help promote their luxury hotels? Why are we supposed to root for these young people with seemingly infinite resources (one of their wedding presents in a multimillion Tribeca loft) who agree to get married in a month because a brand asks them to? Maybe more fundamentally, did the kids and a wedding have to be involved in this story at all? Does it make the idea of Will and Lana getting back together too weird to be fun? Couldn’t they have simply run into one another at a resort?

I won’t go so far as to say that “Mother of the Bride” feels like an AI creation but it does feel at least a little stitched together from pieces of other romantic comedies of varying quality. Why cast a capable comedian like Rachel Harris as the best friend only to have her say lines like “Is he on the menu”? Or give Wilson Cruz so little to do as Will’s brother?

And it’s a shame, too, because Shields and Bratt came ready to play, to fall in the pond and be minimally clothed for comedy’s sake. There must be a new generation of romantic comedy writers and directors who grew up on Ephron and Meyers out there and are ready to give us something that’s commercial and glossy but also smart and fun to revisit (ahem, remember “Set It Up”?). Maybe they just need to be given a shot.

“Mother of the Bride,” a Netflix release streaming Thursday, is rated TV-PG. Running time: 90 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.

Screen Rant

Mother of the bride review: brooke shields is having a great time in easy, breezy netflix rom-com.

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10 things that happen in every harry potter book, the 10 biggest plot twists in christopher nolan’s movies, ranked.

Mother of the Bride is a romantic comedy full of tropes, but it is also sweet and funny enough to work.
A stellar cast, led by Brooke Shields and Benjamin Bratt, shines in this lighthearted summer flick.
The film balances silliness and sincerity, offering an easy, breezy, enjoyable watch.

A young woman living abroad gets engaged and surprises her mother with the news that she is getting married in a month — a destination wedding in Phuket, Thailand. Unbeknownst to both, the bride's mother runs into her ex, and shenanigans ensue. Off the cuff, you would think this is the premise of Julia Roberts and George Clooney's Ticket to Paradise . But no, the always amusing, same movie/different font curse strikes again with Netflix's latest romantic comedy, Mother of The Bride , starring Brooke Shields and Benjamin Bratt.

Lana’s daughter Emma returns from abroad and drops a bombshell: she's getting married. In Thailand. In a month! Things only get worse when Lana learns that the man who captured Emma's heart is the son of the man who broke hers years ago.

Brooke Shields & Benjamin Bratt shine in their roles
The story can be fun and even sincere
Chad Michael Murray is miscast
There are too-silly moments and a concept the film barely explores

After starring in Netflix's A Castle For Christmas (a better movie than this one), opposite the always dashing Cary Elwes, Shields is back in the seasonally appropriate Mother of the Bride . Do you want to get into the beachy vibe, take a vacation to a beautiful exotic location and stare at some impressively good-looking people? Netflix has the thing for you. Want a lightweight story about a mother-daughter relationship sprinkled with the trope of the good old-fashioned college romance that never flamed out? Then Mother of the Bride is just what you need.

Mother Of The Bride Is All Fluff

But it's still a fun time.

Mother of the Bride is riddled with tropes and archetypes, but somehow screenwriter Robin Berheim — who's behind such hits as When Calls The Heart , all three The Princess Switch movies , and A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding — and director Mark Waters, who gave us Hall of Famers , Freaky Friday , Mean Girls and He's All That , manage to make something that is just sweet and funny enough that what usually wouldn't work does.

The key is in the film's pacing; there is just enough of the wedding subplot to anchor the mother-daughter arc. iCarly 's Miranda Cosgrove takes on that task with considerable ease, the unexpected reunion between the mother of the bride and the father of the groom is well managed (yes, their kids are the ones getting married and yes, you know how this ends already), and the filler featuring their friend group and a potential young fling for Shields' character are sprinkled throughout in just the right portions.

While the film isn't something I will eagerly watch repeatedly, it's a good time, bringing the right balance of silly and fun.

Mother of the Bride's success rests on the filmmakers' abilities to not oversell anything and trust that the collective charisma of the assembled cast will do what it needs to do — and it does, though a flimsy script and one major miscast can be distracting.

A Fantastic Cast Shines In A Quietly Amusing Summer Flick

Mother of the bride's strength lies in its actors.

Mother of the Bride's cast is quite impressive, though I highly doubt the likes of Brooke Shields, Benjamin Bratt, Chad Michael Murray, Rachael Harris, Wilson Cruz, and Michael McDonald would give up a chance to have a vacation and do some light acting work in Thailand. Cosgrove and Sean Teale play nothing-burger characters; they are just there to be the catalyst for the central romance but do enough to not feel like a nuisance when they are the focus of a scene.

Cruz and McDonald are the kind of actors you are just happy to see, although McDonald acts as though he walked through the set of Halloween Kills and into Mother of the Bride without breaking character, he is still fun to watch. Cruz is always a joy, and he shines as someone who is meant to exude good vibes only. Harris, as Shields' onscreen best friend, is comically and constantly nursing a drink in her hand, and she offers that I-am-the-mischievous-friend energy here that just feels right for a story about unexpected reunions.

Shields and Bratt are the dynamic duo I never knew I needed. Their chemistry is off the charts, but their most important contributions are their heartfelt performances.

The one glaring outlier in this ensemble is Murray. Although he was considered a heartthrob for some time, his presence in Mother of the Bride feels off. Also, the gag of Shields playing a woman who attracts a man half her age does not work when there is a mere 16-year age gap (58 and 42 is respectable). Additionally, Murray's purpose in the story is not needed, especially when it takes away from the moments involving the former college friends reuniting, which are actually the film's highlight.

Speaking of highlights, Shields and Bratt are the dynamic duo I never knew I needed. Their chemistry is off the charts, but their most important contributions are their heartfelt performances. There are much fewer shenanigans at play than in the aforementioned Ticket to Paradise , but there is a genuine sincerity in exploring former college lovers reconnecting as they near their golden years.

Their dynamic is sweet, humorous, and authentic. Honestly, I could see many people enjoying a light sitcom with Mother of the Bride's cast, specifically Shields, Bratt, Harris, Cruz and McDonald. They make a formidable group of friends at a later stage in their lives who still engage with their youthful spirit.

Mother of the Bride

Mother of the bride strikes the right balance.

Mother of the Bride's story is silly, and it's made sillier by the fact that the couple to be wed inadvertently reunites their respective widowed parents with "the one that got away." The in-law/step-sibling situation here is hardly acknowledged, and while not an outright taboo, I couldn't help but laugh at it. While the film isn't something I will eagerly watch repeatedly, it's a good time, bringing the right balance of silly and fun. The idyllic location is beautifully shot, the story is light and breezy, the performances are equally so, with actors who are a joy to watch.

Mother of the Bride is now available to stream on Netflix.

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Janet Planet

In rural Western Massachusetts, 11-year-old Lacy spends the summer of 1991 at home, enthralled by her own imagination and the attention of her mother, Janet. As the months pass, three visito... Read all In rural Western Massachusetts, 11-year-old Lacy spends the summer of 1991 at home, enthralled by her own imagination and the attention of her mother, Janet. As the months pass, three visitors enter their orbit, all captivated by Janet. In rural Western Massachusetts, 11-year-old Lacy spends the summer of 1991 at home, enthralled by her own imagination and the attention of her mother, Janet. As the months pass, three visitors enter their orbit, all captivated by Janet.

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Trivia Director Annie Baker and star Julianne Nicholson grew up in the same area, which is also where the film takes place. Neither of them knew this about each other until a random conversation.
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