Just in time for Mother’s Day comes the new Jennifer Lopez Netflix movie “The Mother.” A twist on the 1994 thriller “The Professional,” it is the story of a cold-blooded assassin whose heart is warmed by a young innocent caught up in a dangerous situation.
When we first meet The Mother (Lopez) she is a pregnant ex-assassin making a deal with the FBI to turn on her former crime partners, gun runners Adrian Lovell (Joseph Fiennes) and Hector Álvarez (Gael García Bernal). Their business began when she was stationed at Guantanamo Bay, but soon spun out-of-control and now, even the morally compromised Mother wants out.
Trouble is, Lovell and Álvarez will do almost anything to keep her quiet. “You burned down our entire world,” says Lovell.
One barrage of bullets later, Mother is hospitalized. In recovery, she has the baby, but is told by a stern FBI agent (Edie Falco) that not only is she in danger, but the threat from Lovell and Álvarez extends to the newborn. “What you are to that child is a death sentence.”
Mother reluctantly agrees to put the child in foster care while she goes into hiding in the Alaskan wilderness. “You put her with good people,” she says. “Keep her safe. If there’s trouble, let me know.”
Cut to twelve years later. Mother gets word that her daughter Zoe (Lucy Paez), who has grown up in a quiet, leafy suburb unaffected and unaware of her biological mother’s past, is once again in danger. “They’re using her to get to me,” Mother says. Working with FBI agent William Cruise (Omari Hardwick), Mother comes out of hiding to protect the daughter she has never met. “I’m a killer,” she says, “but I’m also a mother and I will die protecting her.”
Hiding out in the wilderness, Mother homeschools Zoe in the ways of tough love and warfare. “Do you hate me?” Mother asks. “Good. Use it. You’re going to work harder than you ever thought you could work. Then you are going to run out your reserve tank and find out you have more. And then you’ll run that out too.”
“The Mother” has echoes of “The Professional” and “Hannah,” but pales by comparison.
New Zealand director Niki Caro kicks things off with a far-fetched, but promising set-up, only to allow it to flounder as the running time increases. A compelling twist on a mother – daughter relationship is wasted by a script with paper thin characterizations, a pair of lackluster villains and no real twists after the first fifteen minutes.
Lopez brings a steely, studied deep freeze to the deadly character, punctuated by moments of familial concern. Lopez is no stranger to action or intrigue, and the “Bourne” style -up-close-and-personal fight scenes have some punch to them, but the clichéd dialogue feels left over from a 1990s direct-to-DVD flick. “I’m whatever I need to be to keep her safe,” could have been said by any number of b-movie heroes, and here, as the words spill out of her mouth, it feels like an echo from another, better movie.
Big points, though, to costume designers Bina Daigeler and Jeriana San Juan, whose fur-trimmed looks for the on-the-run Mother, are runway ready.
Even worse is Fiennes as the blandest bad guy to come down the pike since the forgettable Max Lord in “Wonder Woman 1984.” We know Lovell is evil because he does terrible things, but Fiennes plays him as a vessel for some heavy prosthetic make-up and nothing more.
“The Mother” is serviceable, a big action movie that fits the small screen.
The last time we saw the story of Mulan, a young woman who disguised herself as a man to enlist herself in the Imperial Army in place of her ailing father, it was in the form of an action musical that was Disney’s animated film to feature an Asian heroine.
Twenty-two years later Disney has dropped the songs and upped the body count in “Mulan,” a live action remake, featuring an all-Asian cast and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” producer Bill Kong behind the scenes, that premiers this week on the Disney+ streaming service.
Based on a sixth century legend called “Ballad of Mulan,” the new film lets go of many of the stereotypes that marred the animated version, hewing more closely to the tradition tale. Set in China during the Han dynasty in a quiet village, the story follows Hua Mulan (Liu Yifei), the martial arts-trained eldest daughter of famed warrior Hua Zhou (Tzi Ma).
When the Emperor of China (Jet Li), fearing a threat from the invading Rouran army, led by Bori Khan (Jason Scott Lee), a skilled warrior fueled by anger over his father’s death and shape-shifting witch Xian Lang (Gong Li), he orders the conscription of one man from every household in the land to form a mighty militia.
As the father of all daughters Fa Zhou volunteers but is in no shape to go to war. Unbeknownst to him, Mulan disguises herself as a man and enrolls, risking her life and the dishonor of her family if she is discovered.
“Mulan” doesn’t feel like the other recent Disney live action do-overs. It is different enough in style, emotional content and tone from the animated movie to be a stand-alone with only a tenuous connection to the past. Director Niki Caro drags the story into the twenty-first century, emphasizing themes of female empowerment, allowing Mulan find her own inner-strength and potential and not rely on a Disney prince. The sparks that flew between Li Shang and Mulan in the original are mostly absent—as her commanding officer the power imbalance was deemed inappropriate for 2020—replaced by platonic love interest Chen Honghui (Yoson An).
The reported budget of $200 million is very much evident on the screen. The gorgeously shot Wuxia style action scenes are epic, and for the family audience, relatively bloodless considering how many people are dispatched by Mulan’s deadly blade. Occasionally they fall prey to a heavy hand from editor David Coulson but the sheer size and scope of them, even on the scaled down Disney+ television presentation, are eye-popping. A more intimate climax with life-or-death consequences for Bori Khan, Mulan or the Emperor, is a nicely rendered showdown that effectively delivers a good, exciting mix of action and character dynamics.
“Mulan” is a welcome addition to the Disney remake roster. It plays like a grown-up version of the animated film, bringing the story into the modern age, while keeping the family appeal intact.
Based on the true story of Jan and Antonina Zabinski, Warsaw Zookeepers played by Johan Heldenbergh and Jessica Chastain, “The Zookeeper’s Wife” is the tale of a couple who followed their conscience, rescuing more than 300 Jews during World War II.
The action begins in 1939, months before the German invasion of Poland. The zoo is a sanctuary, run by Jan and Antonina, who treat the animals almost like family. “Good morning sweetheart,” Antonina says, greeting a tiger before giving CPR to a baby elephant later in the day. Then Nazi bombs fall, scattering the animals, effectively shutting down the zoo. When Nazi zoologist Lutz Heck (Daniel Brühl) offers to move the zoo’s surviving animals to Germany for safe-keeping and selective breeding in the hope of bringing back from extinction one of Europe’s most imposing creatures, the aurochs, the Zabinskis make a counter offer. They propose running the facility as a pig farm, using garbage from the Warsaw Ghetto as feed. Their selling point? It will provide food for German soldiers. Their motive? To create a secret safe haven for Warsaw Ghetto Jews, a “human zoo,” as Antonina wistfully calls it.
“The Zookeeper’s Wife” is a simply but effectively told hero’s journey. To her credit director Niki “Whale Rider” Caro has made a handsome movie about a harrowing time. It looks and feels like a big budget period piece, befitting the gravity of the story, but despite some memorable scenes the film feels like it left much of the drama unplumbed. It’s an important story but we don’t spend enough time with the rescued people to truly get a sense of their lives and the movie feels incomplete without as a result.
Chastain holds the centre of the story, providing a steely, compelling—although distractingly accented—character. She shines in her scenes opposite Brühl, a series of cat-and-mouse meetings where she feigns friendship, bonding over a shared love of animals, with the Nazi to keep her hidden dependants safe.
Despite narrative flaws “The Zookeeper’s Wife” contains unforgettable images. The shots of children being comforted by their teacher as they are loaded onto Nazi trains are as memorable as they are heart wrenching. It also contains many instances of animal cruelty. I’m sure no animals were actually harmed during the making of this movie but it doesn’t make the killing of the zoo animals any easier to watch.
