The 355 Review

I don't know how you make a spy film boring, but Simon Kinberg accomplished it. I haven't been this bored since the last Mission Impossible movie.

This feels like the opposite of the task the Producers were trying for in Mel Brooks The Producers. You have the right cast, the right locations, the right modern-day problem; where did it go wrong?

There will be Spoilers past this point.

So the movie circles around this drive that can hack into anything in the world in seconds. It can take down planes midair, cause blackouts, crash economies; basically it can end the world with the click of a button.

It's created by a Colombian drug lords son, who is then promptly murdered by the guy that played Jekyll/Hyde in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Side note: I can't remember everyone's name in this movie so I'll refer to them by another character name or their actual name. Don't judge the process, just trust it, okay?

So, Jekyll kills everyone in this drug lords house, the Colombian Special Forces comes in and they all get in a firefight. Jekyll drops the drive and some Spec Op Agent picks it up.

For some reason, this Colombian Agent Luis calls multiple Agencies trying to sell this drive. He ends up in Paris, and the CIA sends out Jessica Chastain and Sebastian Stan.

As much as I love these two actors, not sure I loved them playing a couple kind of pining for each other. They have sex in the first like 5 minutes of being in Paris and go from "No, we're just friends I don't want to ruin it" to "Get over here in this bed now".

I digress, so they meet Agent Luis in a cafe where they attempt to do this subtle backpack swap but then Diane Kruger swoops in and steals a backpack and runs off. Jessica Chastain goes after her and Sebastian Stan goes after Agent Luis.

Chastain loses Kruger in the subway station and Sebastian Stan is pronounced dead after encountering Jekyll in an alley after losing Agent Luis.

Chastain is devastated, in her own way, and her boss takes her aside and tells her that she'll have to go off-grid to keep working this case. Get the drive at all costs. Also, I assume the sex must have been life altering for her to go from 'I don't care about anyone' to 'they killed my man and I WILL HAVE REVENGE'. Dick-matized, as coined in the wonderful movie Girls Trip.

Kruger is back at BND (basically German CIA) and admits that she grabbed the wrong backpack and did not have the drive. Her boss and mentor tells her to get the drive at all costs.

Meanwhile, Agent Luis gets a visit from his therapist appointed by his own Agency, Penelope Cruz. She's not a field agent, just a therapist but she's trying to convince him to come home to Colombia with her, a few agents, and the drive. Which he does end up agreeing to.

While Cruz talks down Luis all night, professionally, this apparently gives Chastain enough time to fly to London to bring in Lupita Nyong'o who is a cyperterrorism analyst. She agrees to come out with her after some not so convincing chats.

Back in Paris, Cruz and a few Agents takes Luis to wherever he stashed the drive and Kruger, Nyong'o, and Chastain are on their tail.

After a melodramtic gun fight, the drive is stolen, all the girls have begrudgingly banded together and on their way to Morocco. After a lot of impressive and very subtle murder counts, the girls have the drive.

What do they do with it?

Destroy it? Fight over it? Does one betray the others?

Stop guessing, they agree to take it to the closest operative which happens to be Chastain's Boss from the CIA.

This was the moment where I knew, in my soul, that this movie was directed by a man.

The girls hand off the drive and go celebrate with beers and hummus.

Meanwhile, the CIA boss is packing up to leave and is quickly taken out by an Asian woman, actress Bingbing Fan.

The girls see several planes crash while at the bar and know that the drive has been activated but when they discover the CIA Boss's body and no drive, a swarm of agents descends upon them and they run. They find out there's an auction in Shanghai where the drive will be sold.

They infiltrate the auction where Chastain finds out that Sebastian Stan is alive and working for Jekyll. He tries to seduce her into joining him, to which she says no.

Another side note, Sebastian Stan could be reciting Communist Manifesto while touching me the way he did to her and I'd agree with him. God D.A.M.N. I know Stan is a great actor, I'm a huge fan of Bucky Barnes, but the way he plays a seductive bad boy with broken morals in a black Armani suit - Mmm. I know he's a real bad guy but he's my favorite.

So Chastain rejects him, and he leaves her and warns a guard in Romanian (SWOON) to watch her and make sure she doesn't leave. She proceeds to spend the next 4 scenes in a fight with this guard, and honestly the fight is so underwhelming. The first scene with her in this movie is MMA boxing with another Agent in a gym, and she's basically slapping this guy and sometimes kicking him.

I expected more from her.

When an explosion happens inside the auction house, Fan rescues the girls after Chastain chases Stan outside and makes out with him just to steal his gun (but she bites his lip real hard and he looks into it, use that detail however you will) she tries to shoot him but she can't.

So, back at Fan's place she admits to them that she has the real drive and she works for the Chinese equivalent of the CIA.

Stan tracks them down, shockingly quick, looking beat to hell and I'm angry that he's still beautiful. He threatens them to give him the drive by executing people they love, again shockingly quick, but when they get to Cruz's family of her husband and two boys they give him the drive. He takes Fan with him and leaves the rest there alive.

They regroup and follow them and rescue Fan, retrieve the drive, save the world, cause millions in property damage, blah blah blah.

OF COURSE Stan survives being shot, lowkey not actually mad, but it flashes forward 2 months later and he's now some high level boss in the CIA and all the girls are on the run.

Chastain breaks into his house where they have a flirty chat and drink, she asks him how he got promoted.

When I tell you I laughed in this theater, think of Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn.

Chastain had to ask? She had to ask how a WHITE MAN in AMERICA got a PROMOTION for framing her, a WOMAN, for treason and murder? Do you see how funny that is that she had to ask this question in the first place?

While staring into those crystal blue eyes and full lips, its revealed that Stan has been poisoned.

GASP.

Enter all the ladies, Ocean's 8 style, to tell him he's been poisoned with a special Chinese herb from the venom of like scorpions and snakes and spiders. Deadly sounding, right?

Wrong. Apparently he lives again? And Chastain is going to put him in a gulag where he will undoubtedly become the prison bitch.

I could have lived with this movie had it ended right then.

But no, the girls all depart with invisible identities (I think? not explained that well) and make really awkward goodbyes. Like really awkward.

I thought this was going to be an empowering movie with all these amazing actresses where they fight bad guys and kick ass and have awesome gadgets and save the world. What I got was half-assed fights, pretty outfits, and jewelry cameras.

The f*ck am I supposed to do with this?

This movie has twists you can see coming a mile away, half-assed plot lines, zero character development, and gun fights that are so boring you'll be begging for a gun to shoot the screen and just end it.

I wish I had another perk to this movie other than Sebastian Stan being eye candy, but I honestly can't offer any other.

I had such high hopes for this movie. An all star cast like this and a not so sh*tty concept should have been able to turn out something palatable. No such luck.

Save your time, go see literally anything else.