Heart of Stone – A Lifeless Spy Movie Clone (Early Review)

Every once in a while, audiences want to sit back, relax, and decompress with a film where they can have on in the background and don’t have to think and just letting themselves be entertained. The genre that finds itself in that category more often than not is action. Good or bad, they’ve filled that niche. The films of the 1990s and early 2000s tend to be the ones that most lean on primarily for their prominence on television and now streaming platforms. That being said, films since have tried to replicate that formula, however, they just can’t quite match up to their level. Heart of Stone is a generic spy film that feels like a throwback to those action films of the 1990s and early 2000s, not because it is necessarily good but rather for its likely fate of being mindless background viewing. Though it’s big, silly, and stupid, it is still somewhat entertaining in spite of that in a take it or leave it kind of way. Suffice it to say that those looking for some more highbrow content will need to look elsewhere. Already a polarizing figure, star Gal Gadot actually gives a decent performance albeit one in a film that is simply lacking any signs of life.

Heart of Stone follows Rachel Stone (Gadot), an intelligence operative for a covert peacekeeping organization secret from other spy organizations known as the Charter. Trained at a young age, she definitely had all the skills needed to be a great agent. Taught to follow numbers and analytics and to trust no one, things of course changed as her latest mission found itself foiled a by a mysterious young hacker named Keya (Bhatt). Embedded within an MI6 team who were unaware of who Stone really was, she had grown close to them. As her organization came under attack, her allegiances were tested as its analytical and almost cold approach to its operations seemed to no longer be viable. Therefore, in order for the Charter to survive, Stone would have to turn more to her instincts which unsurprisingly proved to be right more often than not. The cat-and-mouse game between she and Keya was somewhat fun to watch in the face of all the ridiculousness that surrounded them, despite the underdeveloped nature of the latter.

Full of silly twists and turns, they essentially don’t matter as it’s all about Stone and how she gets through the trove of challenges thrown her way. As she slowly uncovered more about Keya and her past, the true nature of the crisis and the motivations of those looking to destroy the Charter became clear as it became increasingly intertwined with it and its past misdeeds. She was not working alone and appeared to be in over her head, showing her age as she discovered that she had been working with more powerful forces with more devious intentions. Built on cliches, tropes, and derivative story beats, none of that backstory and the additional twists and turns within it really mattered but audiences can count on all of those playing a part in the climax where the fate of everyone and everything laid in the balance and it was up to Stone to save the day. Ultimately, the predictable nature of the story meant that there was little tension to be had here as the final outcome was never in doubt. Once again, the goal is to make this into another franchise. Whether or not that will happen remains to be seen.

In terms of action, Heart of Stone is overly-manufactured to the point that it becomes a distraction. A few too many CGI-laden sequences do become too much but when the film doesn’t try to go big, it’s okay. The film’s hand-to-hand fight scenes, shootouts, and chase sequences are fine if one doesn’t think too much about what surrounds them. When it comes to adding nothing to the film, the score did the trick, manufacturing tension in a heavy-handed way. Meanwhile, the performances were as lifeless as the material. In what could only be described as sleepwalking, the level of effort (or lack of effort) shown fails to create any type of excitement whatsoever. Though Gadot is trying as Stone, she does not have enough range to lead a film. The same could not be said for Dornan who phones it in as Parker, the leader of Stone’s Mi6 unit.

In the end, Heart of Stone won’t exactly be jumping out at anyone looking for an action movie to watch on Netflix anytime soon but those looking to sit down and not have to think for 2 hours or so, this one may fit the bill.

still courtesy of Netflix

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.