Heart Of Stone Review: A Glib, Soulless Copy Of A Spy Thriller
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movie being reviewed here wouldn't exist.
Though the summer of 2023 has long since become the summer of "Barbenheimer," it's also the summer offering the best action film of the year, "Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One." The Tom Cruise-starring seventh entry in the "M:I" franchise is as propulsive and thrilling as any other of the series' installments, full of globe-trotting action, jaw-dropping stunts, unexpected twists, and a disturbingly relevant villain in the form of artificial intelligence. It is — perhaps fittingly — all but impossible to not think about the "Mission: Impossible" series, especially its most recent title, while watching the new Netflix actioner "Heart of Stone." No one from "Dead Reckoning" shows up here, but there is a distinct bargain-basement feel to "Heart of Stone" as it has the misfortune of tackling AI in a very similar fashion to "Dead Reckoning," while offering up poorly reheated takes on notable stunts with a relatively lifeless Gal Gadot as the anchor around which the film focuses.
Gadot plays Rachel Stone, an MI6 agent whose specialty is technology and who's explicitly told by her higher-ups, like Parker (Jamie Dornan), to never get out of the van while they're on a mission. Though she enjoys being part of the team, it becomes quickly apparent that Stone is hiding a very big secret: she's actually a member of a more secretive spy organization called the Charter, which is guided by a device called the Heart. (And now, you can finally stop having all those sleepless nights wondering why this movie was called "Heart of Stone.") The Heart, you see, is an all-powerful AI technology that can pierce its way through any government or military system, and can even be used to predict the future based on how people are likely to react to given events, big or small. Soon enough, Rachel's double life as a spy (and one who throws herself into action as opposed to staying in the van, metaphorically or literally) as well as the power of the Heart get unleashed on the world, in part because of a sly young hacker (Alia Bhatt) crusading to break down parts of the old world order.
Even if the specter of "Mission: Impossible" did not loom large over the weakly written debates about the power of the Heart — when we first learn what it is, we are meant to believe that the Charter is attempting to control this AI, whereas a particularly nefarious individual wants to use it for ill-gotten gains and power grabs — "Heart of Stone" is a leaden and dull two-hour film that feels roughly twice as long. When the action scenes do not feel like boring echoes of other, better films, they're stitched together in unremarkable fashion. But it's hard not to see this as Gal Gadot's attempt, or maybe just Netflix's attempt, to create an action franchise out of whole cloth. Some of the action scenes here, like one in which Stone does a HALO jump out of a plane in the middle of a stormy sky or another in which she is able to parachute to safety by using another person's chute while in mid-freefall, call back so strongly to the Christopher McQuarrie-era "Mission" films; it's almost amazing to see such direct and unsuccessful cribbing.
A weak copy
It doesn't help, of course, that the script — by Greg Rucka and Allison Schroeder — all too often feels like it was cobbled together by some form of artificial intelligence itself. Stone, Parker, and their fellow MI6 agents (Jing Lusi and Paul Ready), as well as Charter agents Jack and Nomad (Matthias Schweighofer and Sophie Okonedo), all seem somewhat robotic in their interactions. There's just something off about every bit of banter, as much because of the dialogue itself as the performers delivering that dialogue. Gadot, in particular, is very wooden in her performance. The in-joke of the first act — that someone with Gadot's genre bona fides from playing Wonder Woman is obviously going to jump into action even if she's told to stay in the van — belly-flops because of how obvious it is. But even after Rachel's true colors are revealed, Gadot's performance never gets off the ground. Though her turn as Diana Prince in the first "Wonder Woman" remains a solid leading superhero performance, Gadot's work there feels more and more like a fluke considering the stumbles she's had since then.
To be fair (somewhat), it's not as if there are any true standout performances in "Heart of Stone," with it seeming patently obvious that the actors couldn't rise above the material. For those of us who have heard the good word of "Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar," it's something of a bummer to watch Jamie Dornan have to button himself up again and play a stolid type. "Heart of Stone" is not trying to be overly dour (the attempts at humor don't work very well, but there are many such attempts throughout), but his character is limited in range so he feels similarly limited in what he can bring to the performance. Other members of the ensemble do their best, such as Bhatt as a hacker with something approaching a heart (if not a heart of gold or stone), but the script as well as Tom Harper's bland direction don't do them any favors.
Netflix keeps trying to make an action franchise happen, and they've tried before with Gal Gadot. (Though it would be nice to forget that "Red Notice" ever happened, it did and she was part of it.) Some of their efforts have been more successful than others, as with the 2021 film "The Old Guard," which was also written by Rucka. It can be done. But "Heart of Stone" — which wants badly to set itself up as the first in a long-running series — ain't it. Is there a version of an action film in which a daring hero crusades against the dangers of artificial intelligence, specifically because villains want to wield it to bring the world to its knees? There is. It's still in theaters, right now, and it stars Tom Cruise. This movie isn't even worth glancing at when you scroll through your Netflix profile.
/Film Rating: 2 out of 10