The 355 review – Jessica Chastain-directed action thriller is a disappointing flop | Films

In 2017, while filming another ill-advised disaster, the hated X-Men spinoff Dark Phoenix, Jessica Chastain approached Kinberg to create a female-directed action thriller in the vein of James Bond and Mission: Impossible. By the following summer, the film was presented to buyers at Cannes by Chastain and her co-stars, an attractive commercial package that, unsurprisingly, was quickly acquired. Nearly four years later, after a delayed release as a result of Covid, everything that could have worked on paper fades on screen – a bunch of spent nonsense wasted by a cast that deserves much better. Rather than being worthy of the collective power of Chastain, Lupita Nyong’o, Penelope Cruz, Diane Kruger, and Bingbing Fan, she feels like the kind of bottom-shelf scum that Bruce Willis and Jesse Metcalfe would sleepwalk through to pay bills, lots of cash delivered through dirty manilla envelopes.

The spin-off and linked plot centers around an almighty piece of technology that can hack virtually anything, crash planes, sink power grids, and create mayhem for whoever its owner wants. Mace (Chastain) is an agent tasked with bringing him along with his colleague and best friend Nick (Sebastian Stan). But the plan goes awry and Chastain is left a lone wolf, forced to team up with agents around the world to find out what happened and who is to blame.

It’s as generic as it sounds, with an ill-fated first draft of the script by Kinberg and playwright Theresa Rebeck failing to introduce any surprises, suspense, or humor, and is carried away by its sprawling star cast and good intentions. Of course, the genre is still very male-biased, but simply replacing male action heroes with female ones and then falling behind waiting for applause isn’t enough. There’s been a very slow inch toward a little more equality lately, with recent broadcasting efforts led by women like The Old Guard, Kate, and Gunpowder Milkshake easily putting The 355 in the shadows, and so on beyond the logline. yes Bond but with women? ”, There is not much else brought to the table. The film also cannot decide if it is prodding the genre or conforming to it. In one scene, the character of Chastain ridicules the lack of reality in a film of 007 – “James Bond never has to deal with real life” – but only one scene later, only after Traveling around the world in an inexplicable army plane, the women on-the-lam arrive at a gala with new outfits, new wigs and new technology, reality is nowhere to be seen.

Movies like The 355 live and die for the quality of their action scenes, and while there is a propelling pace to the proceedings, there is never enough genuine emotion. The fight scenes, of which there are many, are poorly captured despite the game’s actors, so the action is numbing, confusingly choreographed, and ultimately quite boring. Chastain, who recently gave one of her best performances in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, is a bit flat and quiet here without any eccentricity to play with, so she doesn’t really convince as the charismatic, prisonerless lead that inspires a messy group. of agents to follow her. There’s not much interest for Nyong’o, Fan, and particularly Cruz to chew on, so it’s Kruger who steals it, replacing the original cast Marion Cotillard, doing a lot with very little. No one expects intricate character development with a basic film like this, but there is hardly an attempt to differentiate the characters outside of their nationalities, a film about strong women that reduces them to no one.

Like the movies it aspires to be, The 355 ends on the promise of more, but even without a box office with Omicron’s hit and a cursed January release, audiences are unlikely to be clamoring for a sequel. There will be worse movies this year, but not many will be that hard to remember in the end.