Rating: 6.4
I had very low expectations for the 355. After Simon Kinberg absolutely butchered “X-Men Dark Phoenix”, I had no faith in him as a filmmaker and assumed this would be yet another dumpster fire. But, luckily is surprised me because I didn’t hate it; its merely just okay. It’s fine, nothing special. It’s not good, nor bad, but somewhere in between. It frustrating because it has so many elements that could make up an excellent film, but wastes all of them and makes a movie that feels like it should have been released 20 years ago. It’s an amalgamation of “Oceans Eleven”, “The Bourne Identity” and “Mission: Impossible” but with female leads. If the film had been made when these all came out it might have seemed better, but now it just feels like it’s late to the party and a retread of things we’ve seen before.
The movie feels hollow and lifeless, and if very forgettable. It’s one where you enjoy it while you watch it, but forget it the second it ends. It’s very much something that is perfect to watch on TV when you are bored, nothing to rush out to a theatre for. It’s just a generic and cliche espionage thriller. But in terms of the female led films in this genre, such as the new “Charlie’s Angels”, its much better than the likes of that. The script itself feels a lot like a first draft, the ideas are all there it’s just executed so poorly. The plot and twists are predicable and feel silly at times, and the ending annoyed me because they clearly wrote it to only serve as a device for a message to be stuffed in at the last minute. The film isn’t subtle with its messaging and it just feels like it shouts its message at you in the end, its very poorly handled and sacrifices its own plot.
Not to mention Simon Kinberg’s direction is weak and amateurish. At least it’s a step up from “Dark Phoenix”, but it’s not by much. The film is technically flawed in many areas, from cinematography to editing. Firstly the action scenes, while some are intense and exciting, are shot using the bullshit shaky-cam techniques. They also have a lot of really fast cuts, so you can’t see anything of what’s going on. They also break a key rule of cinematography multiple times; the 180-degree rule. Sequences constantly cut to random angles all over the place instead of using a few key setups, which really disorients the viewer on where characters and objects are within the environment of the scene. There were also multiple instances where edits happened at random times and continuity wasn’t followed, with actors not being on the same marks or delivering completely different performances between single cuts, it really felt weak.
And the movie had such a great cast too, but of course they were wasted. It was just okay, it is the epitome of nothing special, and very technically flawed. It’s not horrible but extremely forgettable. I gave him a second chance, but I wouldn’t trust Simon Kinberg on a movie again.
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IMDb Rating: 4.7/10
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 26%
RT Audience Score: 83%
Metacritic Score: 40
CinemaScore: B+
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Universal
Directed by Simon Kinberg
Screenplay by Simon Kinberg & Theresa Rebeck
Story by Theresa Rebeck
Cast: Jessica Chastain, Diane Kruger, Penélope Cruz, Lupita Nyong’o, Sebastian Stan, Edgar Ramirez, Bingbing Fan
Runtime: 2hr 2min
Rating: PG
Action, Thriller
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When a top-secret weapon falls into mercenary hands, a wild card CIA agent joins forces with three international agents on a lethal mission to retrieve it, while staying a step ahead of a mysterious woman who's tracking their every move.
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Fun Fact: The title is a reference to agent 355 which was the codename of an unidentified female spy who fought for the Patriots during the American Revolution.
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