For reasons that continue to elude me, super-streamers Apple and Netflix seem to be locked in mortal combat to see which of them can make the most wildly expensive and dramatically inert international action thriller—the kind of slick, star-driven nonsense that gets some attention for a few days upon its release, only to disappear into the algorithm and from the collective memories of anyone who watched it or, most likely, took part in its production. This past spring saw Apple unleash Ghosted, a globe-spanning craptacular featuring Chris Evans and Ana de Armas that a perceptive critic (okay, it was me) described as being “so smug and self-satisfied that you can practically feel the contempt everyone involved with its production has for its audience.” For their latest response in this round of Mutually Assured Dullness, Netflix has responded with Heart of Stone, the first film of this type that does not improve in the memory upon comparison to Ghosted.
This time around, Gal Gadot stars as Rachel Stone, a seemingly unassuming tech expert—the kind who stays in the van and out of the line of fire—assisting a group of MI:6 agents led by Parker (Jamie Dorian) in the capture of a reclusive international criminal. When things inevitably go sideways, thanks to the machinations of a mysterious genius hacker (Alia Bhatt), we learn that Stone is no mere techie, but a top-notch intelligence operative for a secretive global peacekeeping force that does the dirty work that mere governments and international agencies just can’t be bothered with handling. At a crucial point, Stone lets her emotions get the better of her (the Heart of Stone—get it?) and sets off a chain of events that could leave her agency’s secret weapon—an all-knowing, all-seeing computer known as the Heart (get it?) vulnerable to being hijacked by the hacker and the mysterious-but-malevolent forces with whom she is working.
Even if this random assemblage of elements lifted wholesale from the Mission: Impossible and James Bond franchises does not sound particularly interesting on paper, you may still be astounded with just how lifeless and desultory it all is up on the screen. This screenplay feels more like a Mad Libs than a genuinely gripping story—especially in regards to the supposedly jarring plot twists, pretty much all of which can be predicted far in advance—and should prove to be as meaningless to viewers as it evident was to screenwriters Greg Rucker and Allison Schroeder. As for director Tom Harper, whose previous credits include Wild Rose, a musical drama with Jessie Buckley that you are nearby advised to seek out right this moment, he brings such an antiseptic, personality-free approach to the material that the whole thing feels as if it was shot by a number of second units that had no idea of what the others were doing. Lots of stuff happens—explosions, car chases, a fight aboard a blimps and gun battles a-plenty—but none of it sticks and the whole thing, despite its attempted frantic pacing, just drags on endlessly.
Even the usually engaging presence of Gadot is not enough to perk things up—she seems bored and distracted throughout, as if she cannot believe that she managed to somehow stumble into a project that makes Red Notice seem substantive by comparison. A titanic bore from start to finish, the only thing that Heart of Stone ends up doing is give viewers a new appreciation for the Mission: Impossible movies—those films may traffic in the same ideas as this one but their filmmakers at least have the decency to put some effort into making them feel fresh and exciting in ways that everyone involved with this nonsense would do well to study for future reference.