When Netflix isn’t making horrible content that the majority of mainstream audiences reject on Mass, Netflix has turned into the home of a career second opportunity.
When certain actors are not allowed to do what they want creatively with the major Studios such as Disney or Universal, the next move is to go to the realm of streaming services where they can have a little more flexibility on the creative side of Film Production.
Chris Hemsworth has been able to craft a film franchise on Netflix separate from his notable role as Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Gal Gadot who is recently no longer in the running to be Wonder Woman on the big screen is looking for her next big project and Netflix has been very profitable to her over the last few years.
The actress was one of three stars paid over 20 million dollars to perform in 2021’s ‘Red Notice’ that was released on the streaming platform just a couple years ago. This time around which is to throw her hat in the ring of creating action movies with female leads.
Now just because an action movie has a female lead doesn’t mean that it’s going to be a cinematic hit. Take 2020s ‘The Old Guard’ starring Charlize Theron for example, a film that checked all the boxes in far as diversity and inclusion but miss the important chat box of quality entertainment.
Gal Gadot understands that promoting a movie just with a female lead is not enough to gain the interest of mainstream audiences so if this film franchise she wants to do something different. Gal wants to put an emphasis in quality content instead of relying on representation to sell the film on its own. This leads us to the premise of her latest film and entitled Heart of Stone.
The film stars Gal Gadot as MI6 agent Rachel Stone who works with a field team to extract an arms dealer who is gambling on an actual in-session U.S. Marines combat operation being livestreamed.
The mission goes awry when Yang is caught trying to sedate Mulvaney, prompting a gunfight. The chaos at the scene allows Stone to contact The Charter, her true employer, an agency dedicated to peacekeeping, working beyond the realms of government, and operating in absolute secrecy. It uses “The Heart,” a predictive AI quantum computer capable of hacking into any digital device, to guide all operations.
Stone remains undercover as part of a mission that sends them to Lisbon, as they are ambushed by mercenaries. Parker murders Yang and Bailey, revealing himself as a double agent working with Keya. With trust at a minimum, Stone must use her resources to stop Parker from bringing down the charter from within.
‘Heart of Stone’ is the Cinematic tale of a great start but a poor finish. One of the biggest flaws with Netflix movies over the last few years has been using big name talent to promote a prop up other actors in the movie who are not sound actors by comparison.
‘Heart of Stone’ is a movie that gets off to a great start as the film throws its hat in the ring of being the next mission impossible inspired knock off film. The opening act of the movie is visually impressive and sets up a very entertaining epilogue for for the film.
The second act of the movie is when the film loses all of its momentum and the pacing comes to a screeching halt. The film spends a good portion of the first 40 minutes crafting a relationship that Stone has with her team only for them to be removed before the halfway point of the movie.
What this does is that it take the film and splits it into two entirely different narratives that it simply can’t recover from. At one point the movie introduces a role character played by Alia Bhatt and her introduction to the film causes the entire movie to fall apart.
Not to say that Gal Gadot is the best actress in Hollywood by any stretch of the imagination but Alia Bhatt’s performance causes this movie to crumble because she is nowhere near as technically sound as Gadot.
‘Heart of Stone’ is a movie that simply loses his steam within the first 30 minutes it doesn’t have the momentum to pull itself back in the right direction. If Gal Gadot was looking to start a franchise on the pillars of this film, the future of the Heart of Stone universe is already on Shaky Ground before the foundation has been poured in.
2/5
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As soon as I saw that there was only one white male on the team, I knew he was going to turn out to be the movie’s villain. Netflix is so predictable.