Gal Gadot further establishes her role as the go-to heroine for the modern action movie. From a small-time player and subsequently working up the ranks in the Fast & Furious franchise, to earning the Wonder Woman gig in the disappointing run of the DCEU (with many speculating whether or not she will return to the role), and then onto the rudimental Red Notice (2021) which released on Netflix a couple of years back. Yeah, I’m not really sure what the appeal is here, unless she’s making these filmmakers money, right?
Rachel Stone AKA ‘Nine of Hearts’ (Gadot) works for a secret spy organisation called The Charter. A peacekeeper agency that work in the shadows and do the jobs that other spy agencies and governments can’t clean up. But Stone operates whilst also being undercover for the MI6, with her team unknowing of her connection to The Charter. When a mission in the Alps is intercepted by a young hacker named Keya Dhawan (Alia Bhatt), Stone is forced to reveal her real identity, and that she isn’t just the plucky newbie that stays in the van whilst the others get their hands dirty. In doing so she exposes herself and The Charter to a team of opportunists looking to take control of the Heart – the power core to a super AI system – and use it to take over the world, I guess?
The Heart is used by ‘Jack of Hearts’ (Matthias Schweighofer). Acting as a tech aid to Rachel and showing off its unique surveillance system as it guides her through her missions. The Heart is used in a similar way to the precogs which Tom Cruise controls in Spielberg’s Minority Report (2002), but The Heart can do much more than just predict a murder. Sadly though, Matthias spends roughly 80% of his screen time waving his hands around whilst operating a super computer superimposed onto scenes in post-production whilst spitting technological jargon in what seems like one of the easiest acting gigs of 2023.
Every role suffers from its wearisome script, with many being reduced to the basic principles of your genre specific spy-thriller fluff. Gadot – along with her team of Jamie Dornan, Jing Lusi and Paul Ready – simply cannot elevate its script beyond feeling like basic line reading as they’re reduced to endless expositional dumbs that try to lure you into believing that its execution is as smart as its idea, but that’s sadly not the case.
Heart of Stone is a blend of Bond, Mission Impossible and a couple of other ideas that we’ve seen pop up elsewhere. It opens promisingly with a stunning sequence reminiscent of an early Roger Moore Bond entry, but the action that follows never really captures the same energy or likeness. Whilst I can say that the visual effects are a surprising step-up given recent times, the rest of the project feels weightless in comparison.
Critical Clay 