Heart of Stone is a Netflix original film starring Gal Gadot. It follows a group of MI6 agents that are tasked with protecting some important piece of technology from an opposing spy group. A mission goes sideways, revealing a darker purpose for everything, and then the movie continues to a fight sequence, then ends. At no point was this movie fun so this RMR review may not be any either. I have no plans to talk about this any longer than I need to, so here are some thoughts on Netflix’s Heart of Stone.
Heart of Good
The year is not over, but I can already tell this is my least favorite movie of 2023. Although this may be the most generic, lazy, and boring movie I have seen in a while, I can still think of one or two things that allowed five minutes of less painful screen time. This movie spends much time trying to convince you these people are more than just coworkers.
As much as I do not want to admit it, there were one or two moments that were okay. The small battle over who controls the music is cute and charming for the two scenes it lasts. The last thing I liked was the relationship Bailey had with his cat, Barry. Despite only taking up three-ish lines of dialogue, they helped make Bailey one of the only humans in this movie. That is honestly all the nice that I have in me.
Soul of Unoriginality
Never in my life post 2022 would I think that I would somehow miss The Gray Man. While that was messy and sloppy, Heart of Stone was plain and uninteresting. It will forever baffle me how an entire production crew, cast, and directing squad can make an action movie as exciting as tapping your own hand. Actually, I just did that to test that statement and even that was way more entertaining. There is only so much relying on tropes that can be done before things become so unoriginal that paper cut feels like a healthy alternative.
Plot of Predictability
Let’s do a little exercise really quickly. Imagine every cliché you know about James Bond or the Mission: Impossible Franchise. There is probably some double crossing, a voice in the protagonist’s ear, and maybe some cool tech. What about the characters within the movie? You probably think about a suave agent, a persuasive talker, the comic relief (of course), and a rogue-ish member.
The villains are another staple of this genre. If they are not an offensively scarred caricature of those with physical differences then they are foreign AKA not American or British. Take every standard item from each of these categories- Archetypes, technology, plot points, etc. and every single one is here. Even worse than that is how every one is used badly. There is nothing original in this movie. Nothing to say, contribute, or engrain into spy movies and it sucks.
Characters of Emptiness
Generally it will not bother me too much if an actor is cast in a role and that does not fit them. Call it a bad performance and move on with everything. However, there are numerous casting choices and written moments for each character that make no sense to me. Let’s start from the top. Casting Gal Gadot was not a bad choice, in my opinion. I have no gripes with that. What I do have gripes with is how her coworkers never thought she is capable of field work.
In Spy, with Melissa McCarthy, she had other agents believe in her and build her up. If I remember Spy correctly, McCarthy stopped McCarthy from field work as well as some of her more negative coworkers.
We can see that what stops Stone from field work is working for another agency, but there really is no reason, no clear reason at least, for her not to be in the field twice. Both missions overlap with each other so she would never have to cover up any mysterious bruises or anything. This made me mad, as you can see, and I do not understand why no one believes Rachel could do something as simple as hack a computer in the field.
Blandness of The Spy
I am putting this out there for whoever may have this ability, but stop casting Jamie Dornan in slick spy roles. He was good in Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar, but that was a comedy. As much as I liked him in that movie, his scenes were always my least favorite scenes. I have no actual hatred towards Dornan, but this sneaky Bond prep work is horrible.
Glenn Close and B.D. Wong are right in front of you. You wasted them to an insane degree. There is nothing else for me to say about that. I have to be honest, I was not familiar with anyone else in the cast. Now that I am familiar, no one fit the role they were put into. Blame it on the writing, performances, direction- whatever you want- no one worked at all.
Alia Bhatt, the opposing hacker Keya, had absolutely no sense to her character at all. Despite being a deadly hacker she was pretty dumb. Paul Ready as Bailey was another empty promise. No comedy, no relief, all annoying. Jing Lusi as Yang was smart. I guess. I do not know, man this was really lame.
Heart of Stone directed by Tom Harper
I did not plan half of this review. The more thought I put into how angry this made me, the clearer it became that I thought about everything more. What else is there to say? Everything good about this movie is actually located in every other movie. I did not expect to hate this movie as much as I currently do, but it is severely soulless. Heart of Stone is now available on Netflix and I give it a 1/10. My next review will be on Oppenheimer so you can see me talk about a movie I loved and not use the word “boring” anywhere.
