Heart Of Stone Review: Dull Spy Thriller Deserves To Sink Like A Stone

There's a high chance audiences will experience a severe case of déjà vu when settling down to stream Netflix's latest attempt at rivaling Hollywood's big summer blockbusters: "Heart of Stone." Following a shadowy secret agent group that even the world's leading intelligence agencies perceive to be nothing more than an urban myth, the spy thriller charts the attempts of their leading agent Rachel Stone (Gal Gadot) as she infiltrates MI6 in her attempts to capture a device known as the "Heart." This is a weapon of artificial intelligence with the power to disable governments and entire countries, which could unleash a wave of chaos upon the world if it releases the personal information of billions out into the open.

In short, it's identical to the "Entity," an all-seeing, all-knowing AI which proved to be the biggest threat yet faced by Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and the IMF in last month's "Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One." Seeing as both movies entered production at similar times, long-delayed on their journeys to our screens due to various COVID constraints, this major narrative similarity is nothing more than a coincidence.

It's unfair to director Tom Harper's film to simply compare it to a movie nobody involved in this production could have possibly known was going to tread similar water while they were filming. And yet, that relatively weak entry in the long-running Tom Cruise franchise exposes everything that's so unsatisfying about "Heart of Stone"; it's a film so eerily similar in its narrative, yet without any of the same compelling blockbuster bombast, that I suspected it could have been ghost-directed by the Entity itself.

Throughout "Heart of Stone," I kept thinking back to Cruise's recent publicity tour, where he could often be found waxing lyrical about the importance of theaters to the extent that many critics interpreted the latest "Mission" storyline as a metaphor for Cruise — the last true movie star, in that he only makes movies for exclusive theatrical release — stopping an all-powerful streaming algorithm at all costs. As a producer, he thinks solely in terms of big-screen spectacle, with the selling point of his starring vehicles increasingly becoming the chance to witness him perform death-defying stunts. You want to see him risk his life for your entertainment? Then you'd better buy yourself a ticket.

In the opening stretch of "Heart of Stone," Gadot is essentially positioned as the budget, streaming-service equivalent to Cruise's Ethan Hunt. Take an introductory action sequence right after her first undercover mission goes awry: positioned at an Alpine resort, she leaps off the balcony and skis down a mountain with no equipment, before propelling off the mountain with just a tattered parachute at her disposal. In concept, it sounds like an ingenious way to introduce her character's ability to improvise daredevil escapes when s*** starts to hit the fan unexpectedly. In practice, it's ruined by awkward CGI and a reminder that if they want to see the real deal — that is, practically executed stuntwork with no special effects trickery — then they'd have to go down to their local theater and buy a ticket for Cruise's latest escapade. If you want to establish a brand-new character as the new Ethan Hunt, it's difficult to become invested when you're reminded he did it better just from the earliest scenes.

As easy as it is to point blame towards Gadot, a movie star who seems uniquely incapable in the acting department, Harper at least understands how best to utilize her. As with the roles typically inhabited by the dominant Euro action heroes of the 1980s — from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren – her character's origin story is never dwelled upon, papering over the fact that she seems unable to speak in any accent other than her own. Without sounding too cruelly dismissive of her admittedly questionable talents as a performer, she's a "personality actress," not a character actress, and any attempts to flesh out Rachel Stone beyond the bare bones of her spy status would prove futile because of it. 

Instead, life is breathed into her character in similar ways to the Hollywood efforts of those action stars — the unremarkable screenplay hands her several playful quips, for one, which offers her the illusion of a more well-rounded personality without needing to rely on her to apply any dramatic weight to proceedings. The director understands how to work around her limitations, but this doesn't matter too much when the character she's playing isn't particularly compelling as written.

The movie has an extensive supporting cast of character actors, all of whom have far more difficulty with the lack of dimensions in their respective roles. Gadot may be best suited to a character with very little beyond a handful of core traits, but a murderer's row of far better performers — from Jamie Dornan to Sophie Okonedo — fail to find anything of interest within their respective parts. Certain supporting characters seem to have been reverse-engineered from quirky traits in lieu of more enticing personalities; this certainly seems to be the case for agent Max Bailey (Paul Ready), who seems largely defined by his love of Fleetwood Mac. This is particularly memorable because, despite the number of times he's shown listening to or forcing others to listen to their back catalog, they are never referenced by name; his defining trait was clearly decided in post-production when producers could determine which artist's music they could get the rights to.

As the film progresses there are more twists, turns, and heavily photographed double crosses, none of which quicken the pulse. What does it say about "Heart of Stone" that the most attention-grabbing moments are entirely derivative of previous "Mission: Impossible" films, with several sequences from 2018's "Fallout" followed almost to the letter? A skydiving sequence and a similarly staged motorcycle chase both continue to arouse the suspicions that this movie was created by an algorithm intent on creating an action spectacular to rival those of Cruise. He shouldn't be worried about this movie eating his lunch and taking audiences away from his beloved theaters, however. Even as the box office receipts suggest audiences are growing tired of his long-running franchise, this lazy attempt at mimicking its formula is a reminder as to why the "Mission: Impossible" movies are special in the first place.

"Heart of Stone" hits Netflix on August 11. 

This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the film being covered here wouldn't exist.