Movie review: Jennifer Lopez hits target dead center in 'The Mother'

May 18—Well-directed by the chronically underrated Niki Caro ("Whale Rider," "North Country," "McFarland USA"), although generically written by Andrea Berloff ("Blood Father"), Peter Craig ("Top Gun: Maverick") and Misha Green ("Lovecraft Country"), "The Mother," which arrived just in time for Mother's Day, is a by-the-books save-a-child thriller set in some violent world of cloak-and-dagger.

Is the person identified only as the Mother (Jennifer Lopez) in the credits really the mother of the mixed-up, rebellious adolescent Zoe (Lucy Paez) who is in such danger from so many fronts? That is established beyond a doubt, and yet we are offered constant doubts. All these modern-day Sarah Connor fables are too many to keep track of anyway. In the case of "The Mother" Lopez's assassin comes out of hiding many years after giving up the child at birth and tries to reconnect with her reluctant 12-year-old daughter (or is she?).

The kid, meanwhile, was raised by good-meaning foster parents. But now girl has been "found" by the bad guys who want to flush Lopez's Jane Bond type super spy out of hiding. Besides, Lopez's mother is so much cooler than her foster parents. The newly reunited mother and child find themselves being tracked by other deadly assassins led by Adrian Lovell (Joseph Feinnes in some nasty make-up) and Hector Alvarez (Gael Garcia Bernal). Who are they? Bad guys is apparently all you need to know. We learn that the mother served in an Afghanistan in a sniper unit, fair warning.

Hector has graduated from weapons to human trafficking. The foot chases and car chases spin along, perhaps to infinity and beyond to little purpose. But the mother has her people as well (in this world, everybody scrounging at the General Store is a secret agent), and they will protect her and her daughter, real or not. Spending much time in rough country, the mother tries to teach life-saving lessons about existence in the state of nature and its dangers, playing with wolf puppies among them.

On the whole, "The Mother" comes across like an offshoot of "Hanna" with a super-assassin mother figure. A platoon of trucks full of super-jet skis and armed fighters arrives in the winter woods to find the mother and daughter and use up screen time.

Lopez certainly has the physical prowess and credibility to play such a role. Nothing in "The Mother" is a stretch for her, except walking around with her hair mussed. I suppose some algorithm or AI has explained to Netflix that even half-baked, this sort of stuff will fly in many entertainment-craving households. After all, Lopez just appeared in "Shotgun Wedding" as a bride tasked with saving her kidnapped guests and is scheduled to play the lead in the upcoming crime drama "The Godmother." This is Lopez getting into the action film territory previously staked out by Zoe Saldana, Jennifer Lawrence, Emily Blunt, Angelina Jolie, Noomi Rapace, Rooney Mara, Geena Davis and too many others. Lopez and Paez ("The Exorcism of Carmen Farias") have chemistry. But the best thing about "The Mother" is that it ends with the newly resurgent Kate Bush singing "This Woman's Work."

Will Carpenter is the Wyoming Tribune Eagle's Arts and Entertainment/Features Reporter. He can be reached by email at wcarpenter@wyomingnews.com or by phone at 307-633-3135. Follow him on Twitter @will_carp_.