Netflix still fails to bring to the audience a great action thriller with a female protagonist. What’s more frustrating is we know they can do it, just take a look at Extraction 1 and 2.
Played by Gal Gadotm Rachel Stone is a computer tech working for MI6, in reality, she’s an undercover operative for the Charter. The Charter is a peacekeeping organization that keeps secrets from other agencies through its state-of-the-art AI “The Heart” technology used to counteract global threats.
When Stone infiltrates an MI6 team that’s being taunted by mysterious ace hacker Keya Dhawan (Alia Bhatt), she’ll need all of her skills to navigate the deadly world of espionage that’s about to confront her. Keya’s goal is to capture and control The Heart.
If Netflix wants a better reputation when it comes to movie productions and to detach itself from the label of creating basic and generic home movies, it needs to get better at them, or at, least, at some of them.
Action thriller movies might be a saturated genre but there are still great writers and directors creating action-packed, engaging films. sometimes it happens on Netflix too. Extraction 2, for example, premiered at the beginning of June, and we still vividly remember not only the story but its unbelievable action sequences.
Heart of Stone, won’t remain impressive in our memory. The movie opens with a sequence that slightly recalls James Bond’s movies, the only problem is that with James Bond, the viewers already know the background story of Mr. Bond.
At first, it seems this is not the first movie of a potential franchise, but rather the second installment.
There is no introduction to the characters, their stories, or the movie story itself. This is incredibly disengaging, you might struggle to get emotionally invested in the storyline or its characters.
The characters’ background stories are so weak and poorly written, it gets difficult to explain why Dornan plays the villain and wants to steal The Heart. There’s a complete lack of character development and growth throughout the movie.
Lack of Surpise
Overall the story is unoriginal and very predictable. You don’t have to be an expert in in the genre to spot the multiple cues toward where the movie is going. It looks like the writers were going through the motions of what makes a movie an action movie and simply wrote them in.
Acting and Action Scenes
Gal Gadot, by now, doesn’t need to prove she can perform great action sequences. She is simply great at those. Her acting is quite good, even though, we would have liked to see her showing more emotions and empathy in some scenes since Rachel relies on her humanity and her instincts rather than simply following The Heart’s calculations and predictions.
The cast and their chemistry are what saved, at least in some parts, this movie. There’s n doubt the actors had a great time on and off screen, their great chemistry is palpable.
The action scenes are another positive note in this feature. they are well choreographed. Considering Heart of Stone had a huge budget, the CGI could have been much better. especially with Gadot close-ups. it was very clear the scenes were done with a green screen behind them.
Worth Mentioning
Small cameo made by Tony winner BD Wong and eight-time Oscar nominee Glenn Close. We would have loved to see Close in a bigger role.
There will be a Heart of Stone 2?
Everything at the end is set up with the premise of becoming a franchisee. Without spoilering too much, Stone set up a new and quite interesting team. And from the look of it, it’s only a matter of time before Netflix to announce the sequel.
Heart of Stone is not the best action-thriller on Netflix, in fact, we are quite far from it. Overall, like Jennifer Lopez’s The Mother, it represents a huge miss for a female-led action movie.
The poor writing doesn’t do any good to the cast. Thanks to the great cast chemistry, their acting and the action scenes Heart of Stone is quite watchable for the general audience. We have no doubt it will climb the Netflix Top Ten and will be turned into a franchise by the streamer.
Heart of Stone is a 2023 American spy action thriller film directed by Tom Harper from a screenplay by Greg Rucka and Allison Schroeder and a story by Rucka.
Run time 122 min.
Heart of Stone drops on Netflix August 11.
CAST
- Gal Gadot
- Jamie Dornan
- Alia Bhatt
- Sophie Okonedo
- Matthias Schweighöfer
- Paul Ready
- Jing Lusi
- Archie Madekwe
- Enzo Cilenti
- Jon Kortajarena
