In The Mother<\/em> \u2014 which has to be the 88th movie this century<\/em> to be given that title (or some variation of it) \u2014 J.Lo is, according to the credits, The Mother. She\u2019s a trained soldier and arms dealer who becomes an FBI informant when she gets pregnant and discovers her two partners\/possible baby daddies (Joseph Fiennes, Gael Garcia Bernal) have been dabbling in human trafficking. After a safe-house ambush leaves a bunch of FBI agents dead \u2014 except for one (Power<\/em> kingpin Omari Hardwick) The Mother saves \u2014 and our injured heroine goes into labor, an FBI agent (Edie Falco) informs her she has to give up the kid and vanish. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Mommy heads to the snowy mountains of Alaska, where she spends a dozen years being a woodswoman killing moose and shit. She comes out of hiding when that agent she saved informs her she has to protect her preteen offspring (Lucy Paez), now that the daddies\/baddies know that she exists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After doing a couple of silly-ass rom-coms<\/a> for Peacock and Amazon Prime, star\/producer Lopez comes to Netflix to do a silly-ass actioner. (I mean, where<\/a> else<\/a>?) She\u2019s invited other women to join her on this journey, including director Niki Caro (who did the live-action Mulan<\/em><\/a>) and screenwriters Misha Green (Lovecraft Country<\/em>) and Andrea Berloff (Straight Outta Compton<\/em>). They\u2019re all there to aid in Lopez\u2019s mission of showing she\u2019s available to kick ass anytime on-screen. But anyone who\u2019s seen Out Of Sight<\/em> (which came out 25 years ago this summer, BTW) already knows that Lopez can be a warrior who exudes both ferociousness and foxiness. Now that she\u2019s a thrice-divorced mother of two, Mother<\/em> is Lopez letting y\u2019all know she now has mama-grizzly energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s unfortunate how everything \u2014 from the story to the visuals \u2014 is so freakin\u2019 murky. I don\u2019t know if it was just the screening I attended, but I could barely make out what the hell was going on. (New Zealand cinematographer Ben Seresin may want to leave this title off his IMDb page.) If there\u2019s one thing that consistently stays clear and glowing, it\u2019s Lopez\u2019s face. Whether she\u2019s chasing down a low-life in Mexico or teaching her kid how to survive in the wilderness (those scenes with Lopez and a bratty Paez are predictably awkward), Lopez stays a vision of clean-skinned beauty \u2014 even when she\u2019s ready to kill a bunch of goons. I\u2019m surprised no one thought about calling up Pond\u2019s to see if they could do a marketing tie-in. At my screening, they passed out a \u201csurvival kit\u201d that included a lighter, a flashlight and bandages. I\u2019m kinda upset they didn\u2019t throw in some skin cream. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Though an empty, clunky experience, The Mother<\/em> could still entertain those who\u2019ve always wanted to see a \u201cYou Are the Father\u201d episode of Maury<\/em> descend into explosions, gunplay, and dead bodies all over the gotdamn place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The Mother” is on Netflix Friday.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/mother2-1024x574.jpg\")
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It\u2019s too bad the story is maddeningly flimsy. Lopez and Hardwick\u2019s characters go back and forth to different locales (apart from their obvious chemistry \u2014 and the brief looks they steal when the other is changing \u2014 these two gorgeous performers appear in yet another movie where THEY DON\u2019T SMASH!) to go up against villains, mostly there to give off oily, creepy vibes, who suddenly find out at the same time they\u2019re deadbeat dads. Bernal is wasted in his brief role, basically doing the horny-nemesis act Javier Bardem did in Skyfall<\/em>. As for Fiennes \u2014 let\u2019s just say Lopez had more palpable heat on-screen with his big bro Ralph in Maid in Manhattan<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nC-<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n