Gal Gadot as Rachel Stone in ‘Heart Of Stone.’ Cr. Chris Baker/Netflix © 2023.
On Netflix now, ‘Heart of Stone’ is an abject lesson in what happens when you really, really, urgently want to put the pieces of a brand-new franchise together, but like someone mis-reading an Ikea instruction booklet, end up with something that feels hastily assembled and shows the joins all over the place.
“Defy the odds.”
What’s the story of ‘Heart of Stone’?
(L to R) Gal Gadot as Rachel Stone and Jamie Dornan as Parker in ‘Heart Of Stone.’ Cr. Robert Viglasky/Netflix © 2023.
Rachel Stone (Gal Gadot) appears to be an inexperienced tech, part of an elite MI6 unit headed up by lead agent Parker (Jamie Dornan). What her team doesn’t know is that Stone actually works for the Charter — a covert peacekeeping organization, secret even from other spies, which uses cutting-edge technology to neutralize global threats.
Rachel has been trained to be the consummate professional: a phenomenal field agent who sticks to the mission, follows the numbers, and trusts no one.
When a routine mission is derailed by mysterious hacker Keya Dhawan (Alia Bhatt), Rachel’s two lives collide. As she races to protect the Charter (and its mysterious, powerful AI known as the Heart) and strives to beat the odds, her humanity might just be her biggest asset…
Who else is in ‘Heart of Stone?’
(L to R) Jing Lusi as Yang, Paul Ready as Bailey, Jamie Dornan as Parker and Gal Gadot as Rachel Stone in ‘Heart Of Stone.’ Cr. Robert Viglasky/Netflix © 2023.
The cast for ‘Heart of Stone’ also includes Sophie Okonedo, Matthias Schweighöfer, Jing Lusi and Paul Ready.
Does ‘Heart of Stone’ deliver on the spy action?
Gal Gadot as Rachel Stone in ‘Heart Of Stone.’ Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2023.
It has the Skydance logo before it. It features a stunt sequence involving a parachute and a motorcycle. And it’s excellent.
Unfortunately for the new espionage thriller starring Gal Gadot, it can only match ‘Mission: Impossible –– Dead Reckoning Part 1’ in the first two elements. For while Tom Cruise’s latest is a sleek, lovingly fashioned Aston Martin, ‘Heart of Stone’ is more like a Tesla; sure, it looks flashy, but under the hood there are all manner of problems.
And prime among them is the tired feeling that emanates from this new movie. One or two ideas hit (the Charter’s nifty, ‘Minority Report’ style AI is housed in a high-tech blimp 85,500 feet in the sky) but in general, there’s little to make genre fans’ hearts race.
There’s also the issue that star Gadot brings largely a monotone performance to Rachel Stone –– while the ‘Mission’ movies have proved that Cruise is great at playing Ethan Hunt, he’s also got the chops to bring a little something else. For Gadot, who is otherwise solid in the ‘Wonder Woman’ films and has done good work elsewhere, there’s the creeping feeling that this attempt to kickstart a franchise won’t function as well as, say the ‘Extraction’ movies have for Chris Hemsworth, another actor looking to prove he can sell tickets (or in this case, entice subscribers) outside of his superhero role.
Gal Gadot as Rachel Stone in ‘Heart Of Stone.’ Cr. Robert Viglasky/Netflix © 2023.
Stone is part of The Charter, a super-secret organization made up of former intelligence officers who are sick of governments and their various established espionage/military teams not getting the job done.
Somewhat confusingly, despite possessing the incredible (at times, near magical) resource of the tech known as the Heart, the Charter chooses mostly to embed its officers within those teams, rather than just going about its business. There is an attempt to explain why, but it’s not very convincing. It’s just one thing among several that make little sense here.
The concept of competing espionage outfits is also not all that fresh –– ‘Alias’ was doing it back in 2001, and not to push the Ethan Hunt button yet again, but the ‘Mission: Impossible’ franchise also hinges on the idea of an outsider operation getting things done.
Despite writing credits for Greg Rucka (a comics veteran who most recently wrote the far more successful ‘The Old Guard’ for the streaming service) and ‘Hidden Figures’ Allison Schroeder, this more has the feel of something developed by feeding various other, better examples of the genre into an AI and having it generate something based on that. Which, given the McGuffin at the, um, heart of this story, we suppose feels appropriate.
And Tom Harper, who has mostly worked in UK TV drama (but has movie credits via the likes of horror ‘The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death’ and adventurous semi-biopic ‘The Aeronauts‘) struggles at times here to bring the requisite energy.
What works about ‘Heart of Stone’?
Sophie Okonedo as Nomad/King of Hearts in ‘Heart Of Stone.’ Cr. Robert Viglasky/Netflix © 2023.
All that said, there are pieces to recommend. Sophie Okonedo gives good snark as Nomad, the King of Hearts (the commander of the Charter unit of which Stone is a member, since the organization uses card suits to name its various international groups). And during a scene where she meets up with fellow “Kings” there’s some fun to be hard star-spotting via quick cameos, but it feels more like a gimmick than narrative necessity.
Bhatt, making her Hollywood debut after working in India (we can only imagine how tame the action in this must have seemed compared to ‘RRR’) is a likeable presence, bringing a little more energy to the role than the leading lady. Elsewhere, the likes of Dornan, Lusi, Ready and Schweighöfer do what they can with limited screentime, though Dornan fairs better thanks the movie’s one interesting plot turn.
Whether this does actually lead to more movies featuring Gadot’s Stone remains to be seen. Netflix has its own mysterious and slightly terrifying algorithm that drives the films and shows that make it before our eyes and prefers not to release official viewing figures.
So, it might all depend on whether ‘Heart of Stone’ sticks around on the company’s Top 10 or how urgently it sees future films based on this idea as a way of staying in business with Gadot. Let’s not forget that she also has ‘Red Notice’ (which also boasts the star power of Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds) to keep them both going, a proven result even if itself was hardly the best thing any of them have appeared in.
‘Heart of Stone’ receives 5.5 out of 10 stars.
Gal Gadot as Rachel Stone in ‘Heart Of Stone.’ Cr. Robert Viglasky/Netflix © 2023.
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