A fun one-time watch
Summary
Like the majority of Netflix films Heart of Stone isn’t a movie I’d likely watch again too often but it still had some fun moments with Gal Gadot looking fabulous while taking down the bad guys. It was admittedly better than expected with a few enjoyable twists and some decent fight scenes but you’ll forget about it within 5 minutes.
Plot: An intelligence operative for a shadowy global peacekeeping agency races to stop a hacker from stealing its most valuable and dangerous weapon.
Review: I didn’t have particularly high expectations for Heart of Stone as the trailers looked bland and filled with CG set-pieces, so I figured that’s what it would be. It does indeed have a few moments like that especially a sky-diving scene which looked pathetic especially whenever you watch the likes of Mission: Impossible and you see these stunts done for real. That’s generally the point of action movies is the thrill of death-defying stunts and big action scenes where we wonder “how did they do that?” but you’re never in any doubt here.
Heart of Stone will be quickly forgotten but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a good time with it. Gal Gadot is as stunning as ever and her character Rachel Stone is appealing while also being able to handle herself.
It’s mostly predictable and generic spy fodder but I enjoyed the story, and I will avoid spoilers but just say the main villain was an appropriately hateful antagonist. I liked how Alia Bhatt’s co-villain story played out and was one of my favourite aspects of the film.
Heart of Stone’s main highlight for me is the music score which actually had a memorable theme tune that we rarely get these days. It added excitement to the action scenes, and I may even listen to it outside of the movie.
In terms of action, we get a few decent fight scenes and an impressive car chase through a city; I liked how the finale didn’t go into CG overload and was actually surprisingly lowkey but it worked better and felt more real than what you’d expect from a film like this.
Overall, Heart of Stone is exactly what you’d expect with a few CG-infused action scenes but there are still several decent set-pieces and it has a couple of shocks and an excellent music score which just elevate it above 2.5 stars.
