Image Credit: Netflix
Multi-hyphenate Jennifer Lopez (aka J.Lo or Jenny from the Block) has long reigned as streaming royalty over the past few years. Whether it’s on Prime Video or Netflix, J.Lo is in your home and here to stay. Her recent Netflix films have met with varied success, and now, with Office Romance, she’s partnering with the Big Red N for the fourth time – this time in a departure from her previous action roles. Back to its roots in a gentle yet hilariously raunchy romantic comedy. How does it stack up against his other Netflix original features? Let’s find out.
Here’s every Jennifer Lopez Netflix original movie, ranked by release office romance (Read our full review here).
4.
atlas
atlas is a painfully unwatchable sci-fi action flick with PS4-level CG VFX. Its story of human-AI friendship is irreverent, even gentle, and challenges your intelligence. Watching will destroy a cell or two in your brain. Jennifer Lopez, playing an AI-hating data analyst, tries to build chemistry with the AI voice in her crash mech suit (voiced by Gregory James Cohan), but it fails, yet that’s what makes this dull movie’s run time so much longer. His AI-brother Simu Liu, a robot who is out to destroy humanity, adds a little drama. Atlas feels like a fake movie gag from 30 Rock, expanded to feature length and given a $100 million price tag.
3.
Mother
If you want to see Jennifer Lopez in a cool, snowy parka and Bourne-esque spy costume as a murderous assassin who spies on bad guys to trap civilians in traffic and protect her estranged daughter, then this is for you. She delivers a good performance for what is expected of her in the story: as a hardened killer with bloody fingers, trying to connect with the child she abandoned long ago, but attempting to protect her from a distance. She offers a good range and makes the film worth watching, but her performance can’t add much weight to this painfully generic R-rated actioner, which is bogged down by a generic script and Niki Caro’s poor action filmmaking.
2.
Jennifer Lopez: Halftime
Halftime is mostly a vanity doc project that wouldn’t do the trick for everyone to clearly agree that Hustlers was the pinnacle of Jennifer Lopez’s career as an actress, and to ignore her performance as stripper and edgy con-woman Ramona is nothing less. [Fiona Apple voice] Criminal.
In many ways, the structure of the doc, built around its first real outing amid preparations for the 2020 Super Bowl halftime show, is bizarre. Heck, I’m amazed at how much it affects his preparation. It’s a modest profile doc that in many cases is breezy and sometimes can’t be taken entirely seriously (so many call backs to “Fat Butt and Pancake Head” an episode of South Park made me cringe and let’s not forget the framing of Laura Dern as the villain in her Golden Globe win) and doesn’t really feel like it’s scratching any new boundaries outside of López’s identity and being a representative voice for Latin Americans. But then again, in others, it’s fascinating to see her New Yorker work as an artist.
1.
office romance
This is easily the best of his Netflix films, though that’s a low bar. Still, Office Romance channels early 2000s J.Lo. There are rom-coms that, despite the chaos and crudity, make you believe in love. She and Brett Goldstein share real chemistry, their slow-burn dynamic and shy glances make you smile. The film is as funny as it is heart touching. Goldstein and Joe Kelly joined J.Lo. has created a fusion of rom-com, turning it into something original and charming – a rewatchable, lovable film that marks his best work in this genre.
Now it’s up to you – what’s your favorite of the four so far? Let us know in the comments.
