A One Mann’s Movies review of “Heart of Stone” (2023).
Having helped Netflix deliver one of their massive movie hits with “Red Notice“, Gal Gadot returns with “Heart of Stone”: a similarly glossy spy-type thriller. We are definitely in ‘park-your-brain-at-the-door’ territory here.
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
Plot Summary:
Rachel Stone (Gal Gadot) is a tech expert “in the van” for an MI6 team comprising Parker (Jamie Dornan), Yang (Jing Lusi) and Bailey (Paul Ready). Or is she? Actually, she is undercover with the team but really working as a highly competent field operative for a shadowy peacekeeping agency called the IMF….. no, sorry, “The Charter”… who use an advanced AI called “The Entity”, no, sorry again, I mean “The Heart”. This can compute probabilities for the future and can hack into any system around the world. But the “9 of Hearts” is about to have her cover blown.
Certification:
UK: 12A; US: PG-13. (From the BBFC web site: “Language”.)
Talent:
Starring: Gal Gadot, Jamie Dornan, Alia Bhatt, Jing Lusi, Paul Ready, Matthias Schweighöfer, Sophie Okonedo.
Directed by: Tom Harper.
Written by: Greg Rucka & Allison Schroeder.
Twitter Handle: #HeartofStone.
Bollywood favourite Alia Bhatt as Keya Dhawan, facing off against Stone (Gadot) in the Somali desert. (Source: Netflix).
“Heart of Stone” Review:
Positives:
- As for “Red Notice”, we flit around the world to multiple countries that have attractive film-production tax breaks! We visit the Alps, London, Lisbon, the Somali desert and Iceland. The cinematography (by George Steel) is glossy and impressive.
- Having said, in my review for “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1” that film-makers should stop filming ALL of their chase sequences in Paris or Rome, this one delivers a fun car chase around the trams and sights of Lisbon. (Which was one of the cities I actually suggested!).
- While most of the story is fairly predictable, there is one particularly nice (and suitably shocking) twist in the story that I didn’t see coming.
- Sure, she’s not the best actress in the world, but Gal Gadot is still one of the most stunningly beautiful creatures to grace our screens. Call me shallow, but I enjoy seeing her in anything.
- Bollywood star Alia Bhatt makes her western movie debut. Although (I must admit) I struggled with her accent for a few of her lines, she makes for a nice foil against Gadot’s heroine.
Negatives:
- It’s astonishing how many similarities there are to Mission Impossible in this film. “The Charter” is a global shadowy force akin to the IMF; “The Heart” is an AI that can predict future outcome percentages and hack into any system around the world just as “The Entity” could do in “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1“; We even get a repeat of the ‘Halo jump’ stunt from “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” (although I’d be pretty sure, unlike Tom Cruise, that Gadot didn’t do her own stunt work for this!). In other steals from past movies, we have the ‘skydive without a parachute’ stunt from the opening of “Moonraker”, the cable car fight from “Where Eagles Dare” and even the air-gasping hanger scene from “Galaxy Quest”!
- It’s a pretty light and fluffy affair: basically a quest to take control of the McGuffin, which is (implausibly) in a high-flying automated blimp (“Goodyear?” “No, the worst”) circling the globe.
Summary Thoughts on ”Heart of Stone”
It’s Bond, Jane Bond. And Bond-lite at that. But I rather enjoyed this as silly and mindless entertainment. It’s what I would call a “good ironing film” – something to have on and entertain you while you get those creases out.
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Trailer for “Heart of Stone”:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuDwndGaCFo . (Not too bad a trailer. It doesn’t spoil the nice twist in the film, which I feared it might!)
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