Heart of Stone

This perfectly serviceable spy movie is unlikely to stay with you long after the credits roll, but there are some interesting ideas and the cast keep things entertaining enough.

Premise:  Rachel Stone (Gal Gadot) serves as the ‘guy in the chair’ for an MI6 team of field operatives led by Agent Parker (Jamie Dornan) - but there’s more to her than meets the eye, as becomes apparent when a hacker attempts to locate an artificial intelligence system called “The Heart” that has to ability to predict the future.

Review:

For every Mission: Impossible that redefines what a spy movie can be, there’s a The 355 or a The Contractor that just repackages the usual formula to provide an ultimately underwhelming action flick.  Heart of Stone is Netflix’s latest attempt to produce a genuinely cinematic blockbuster, and while it’s not nearly as disappointing as movies like The 355 or The Contractor, it’s also fairly unremarkable when all is said and done.  Heart of Stone lacks the grittiness of Atomic Blonde, the humour of The Gray Man, or the inventiveness of Argylle, and instead is just a fairly straight-forward action/spy movie that wouldn’t have felt out of place in the 90s.

The most entertaining section of Heart of Stone is actually the movie’s opening set-piece – but I don’t want to say too much about it because not knowing anything about the opening section and being surprised as it unfolded was actually the high point of the film for me.  What I will say is that the filmmakers’ decision to move away from that fun initial premise at the end of the first act meant that, for me, the remainder of the film became a much more by-the-numbers globe-trotting spy adventure from then on.

“…the cast are able to elevate the material…”

There are a few twists and turns along the way, but for the most part, the plot in the second half of the film plays out in probably the exact way you’ll expect it to.  Meanwhile, the action sequences are decent enough but lack any of the flair or ingenuity that makes films like Mission: Impossible or Argylle so memorable.  That said, the cast are able to elevate the material, with Gal Gadot proving as charismatic a lead as ever, Jamie Dorman doing a lot with a little, and Matthias Schweighöfer keeping things entertaining in the comic relief role.

Ultimately, while Heart of Stone is not an objectively great film, it was easy viewing that kept me engaged for a couple of hours – so if you have time to kill, you could do a lot worse … but don’t make catching up on this film a top priority.