Heart of Stone (2023)
Director: Tom Harper
Writers: Greg Rucka; Allison Schroeder
Starring: Gal Gadot; Jamie Dornan; Alia Bhatt
By Paul Bernardo paulieb2003@gmail.com
Tom is a tv series director, and I’m afraid, here, it shows. Heart of Stone is a mission impossible film with a female lead instead of Ethan Hunt. This is a brainchild of Skydance Media which has teamed with Tom Cruise on many a film, including the MI films and Jack Reacher.
So they have an amazing IP franchise going in the Mission Impossible series – why not try to extend it? Who better to extend it than Wonder Woman herself? I mean, she is known for action, she is known for being a hero and pulling off impossible stunts and amazing feats of strength. So yes, on paper this looks incredible and can’t possibly miss. Problem is, it misses. It misses big.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Gal Gadot and I think she’s fabulous. That said, when she gets serious and makes threats all you can do is laugh and stare at her pretty face. When she makes funny one liner quips during car chases, it just doesn’t work. You are busy trying to understand what she is saying rather than laughing. There is just no intensity with Gal. She is too sweet, too nice, too pretty. She is great as Wonder Woman because she is far beyond us mortals and it’s laughable to think anyone can ever come close to hurting her. But as an MI agent or as a spy – she just can’t deliver.
So you have Tom Harper directing this thing, so it looks and feels like a Hallmark movie – and you have Gal trying to be tough and funny and this whole thing just falls apart. Plus the logic with this screenplay makes no sense, so don’t even try to think that the story is good. It’s a shoot’em up save the world plot, and they are all the same. It’s the final showdown between good guy and bad guy with the world in the balance again. Except with Gal you don’t really feel the tension or the pressure. So you start wondering what else is on Netflix before it gets too late at night and you have to go to bed.
If you want to see Gal, go watch the first Wonder Woman, if you want a spy thriller with action that makes sense and works, go see one of the MI movies with Tom Cruise. This movie was a nice try and a great idea, but SkyDance just could not pull it off. They cast the wrong actors and chose the wrong director.
I’m afraid it’s stormy weather for these guys – someone give Gal an umbrella. I don’t want her to catch a cold. See ya next week!
