The first nation wide release of 2022, the female spy team up movie, The 355, has hit theaters.
An All Star cast, an experienced Action Director, and an around the globe adventure await! But, what went wrong? Let’s take a look.
The Plot – The 355
After a high tech device is developed and stolen in the jungles of Columbia, American spies are dispatched to recover the weapon before it can fall into the wrong hands.
Mason Browne, played by Jessica Chastain; and Nick Fowler, played by Sebastain Stan; get dispatched by the C.I.A. to intercept the Macguffin. The Macguffin, or object being chased after, in this case is simply a computer tablet that can hack into any computer in the world.
Undercover in the City Of Lights, Mace and Fowler meet up to buy the Macguffin to get it off the streets. That is, until they’re ambushed, and a chase ensues. When the dust settles, the Macguffin is in the wind, Fowler is gone, and Mace is on her own.
Along the way, Mason, or ‘Mace’, meets up with Khadijah Adeyeme, of British Intelligence, played by Lupita Nyong’o. Eventually, Mace and Dij meet up with German Spy Marie Schmidt, played by Diane Kruger; and Columbian therapist Graciela Rivera, played by Penelope Cruz.
The Good – The 355
The Cast
Chinese Spy Lin Ming Shen, played by Bingbing Fan eventually joins the five woman team to form ‘The 355’; bringing star power from around the globe to this film.
All five leading ladies bring plenty of gravitas and skill to this film; and each gets moments to shine. Fan’s ‘Shen’ brings martial arts and stealth; Kruger’s ‘Schmidt’ brings strength and determination; and Cruz’ ‘Rivera’ brings heart and resilience.
Dij brings the technical mastery and Mace brings the leadership and fight. While not given much screen time to develop their characters, these veteran actresses make the most out of the little time they’re given.
The Bad – The 355
Shaky Cam
The 355 trailer points out the same studio that brought us the Bourne franchise also brings us this film.
However, the shaky camera movements in Jason Bourne’s fights that added to the impact and energy of those scenes, are out of place in the fight scenes in The 355.
The camera movements are artificially shaky and overdone in The 355’s fight scenes. Instead of adding to the sense of energy, the shaky camera makes it hard to even tell if Jessica Chastain and Diane Kruger are even doing their own fight scenes.
The editing also falls short in these scenes. The quick edits come too quickly in the action scenes. Combined with the artificially shaky camera movements, the quick edits make the action too difficult to follow coherently.
All Action, No Story
Director Simon Kinberg previously directed X-Men: Dark Phoenix, where he spent too much time on character and story development, and not enough time on the action scenes; making for an awful movie.
This time, Kinberg overcorrects in the opposite direction, adding too much Action, without shading in the characters or the story lines. Without giving reason or context to the extended action scenes, the fights and chases don’t have meaning or depth.
What is the point of a fight scene, if you don’t care about the characters, or know the stakes that they are fighting for?
The Review – The 355
While the big name cast members can make up for SOME lack of character development with their collective screen presence and audience familiarity; they can not make up for zero attention paid to the story or their characters by the Director.
There are five major action scenes in The 355, and all five are extended and take up most of the screen time. We have very few, if any, character or story scenes until half way through the second act, at least an hour into the film.
The action takes place in at least five different countries, fighting over the hacking device. But, little is established about what the device does or how it works. The only real things we know are that it can destroy planes and turn off the lights.
Also, the poorly executed shaky cam fight/action scenes feel like they are hiding stunt doubles for the mostly over-40 cast members, instead of showing off these veteran performers doing many of their own fight stunts.
The result: less than believable fight scenes for characters that you don’t really care about.
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Score
Score
Review Nation Score
The 355 brings together an All Star cast, but lacks a well told story or character development.