45
Metascore
26 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 75ObserverEmily ZemlerObserverEmily ZemlerWhile the plot and characterization occasionally falter, Lopez is charismatic, tough and—it has to be said—totally ripped.
- 63Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsChicago TribuneMichael PhillipsThe second half of The Mother settles for the usual. But getting there makes for a fairly diverting series of melees in the name of child protection, with services rendered by a tough-love mom who does it all.
- 60The New York TimesLisa KennedyThe New York TimesLisa KennedyApart 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.
- 60The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyThe Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyI’ll take this JLo as “nobody fucks with me or my daughter” killing machine, discovering her long-hidden maternal instincts, over those grimly generic rom-coms she cranks out once a year, which might as well be direct-to-inflight movies.
- 59Paste MagazineJesse HassengerPaste MagazineJesse HassengerLopez indulges a different form of movie-star vanity than simply making herself over as an unstoppable woman of action. The movie pretends to conceal her mothering sensitivity, but it’s actually flaunting the same maudlin old-man sentimentality that drives so many Liam Neeson vehicles, minus the genuine anguish Neeson can usually summon on cue.
- 58The A.V. ClubCourtney HowardThe A.V. ClubCourtney HowardIt’s decent but a tad too restrained for its own good.
- 58ColliderTania HussainColliderTania HussainThe 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.
- 50VarietyOwen GleibermanVarietyOwen GleibermanThe movie, which should have been 90 minutes long (it’s 116), is lumpy and inflated, it’s sketchy yet a touch grandiose, and it’s full of tersely dramatized scenes that somehow feel overly broad.
- 20The GuardianPeter BradshawThe GuardianPeter BradshawIt’s a script which shows every sign of having had plenty of rewrites, though perhaps it could have done with a few more.