Directed By Simon Kinberg

Starring – Jessica Chastain, Lupita Nyong’o, Diane Kruger

The Plot – When a top-secret weapon falls into mercenary hands, wild card CIA agent Mason “Mace” Brown (Chastain) will need to join forces with rival badass German agent Marie (Kruger), former MI6 ally and cutting-edge computer specialist Khadijah (Nyong’o), and skilled Colombian psychologist Graciela (Penelope Cruz) on a lethal, breakneck mission to retrieve it, while also staying one-step ahead of a mysterious woman, Lin Mi Sheng (Bingbing Fan), who is tracking their every move. As the action rockets around the globe from the cafes of Paris to the markets of Morocco to the wealth and glamour of Shanghai, the quartet of women will forge a tenuous loyalty that could protect the world-or get them killed.

Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence, brief strong adult language, and suggestive material.

The 355 – Official Trailer 2 – YouTube

POSITIVES

Though reduced bluntly by a barrage of problematic instances, “The 355” is certainly an ensemble-driven movie, with the infectious energy and resiliency in commitment from the cast orchestrating more than a few endearing performances within this female-led spy thriller. Of them, Chastain, Kruger, and especially Nyong’O consistently steal the show for me, with each of them cementing pocketed dynamics of evolving interaction that not only enhances and solidifies an endearing chemistry in bond between them, but also conjures no shortage of momentary showcases, prescribing something uniquely diverse with each of their capabilities that pays off immensely with regards to what each of them brings to the table. Surprisingly, this isn’t just a ladies night out, however, as Sebastian Stan also brings forth a remarkably memorable turn as a complex figure from Mace’s past, who himself attains the typical physicality and endless charisma that has made him a captivating presence in any film he chooses to enhance. On the creative spectrum, the necessity for five butt-kicking protagonists was sure to bring with it an air of social commentary to unleash its thematic aggressions on, but the subdued nature of their outlining is most commendable here to the occasion, refusing the same heavy-handed, on-the-nose characteristics from previous films that are so obvious, they might as well taint the movie’s presentation with splashes of pink. Instead, it illustrates their femininity in ways that doesn’t use it as a gimmick throughout, instead indulging in the humanity from within that serves as the universal link between genders that all sides of the coin can faithfully relate to.

NEGATIVES

Unfortunately, Kinberg fails once more to produce something substantially stimulating in the air of his audience, littering his film with an abundance of technical and creative issues that continuously hinder the engagement. From a directing aspect, this film is a problematic mess, full of underwhelming action and minimal characterization that undersell the key ingredients to a plot and structure so tamely derivative in this overstuffed subgenre. For the action, a dated bitterness of machine-gun-like editing and shaking-camera movements from films like “Resident Evil: The Final Chapter” or “Jason Bourne” prescribed chaotic agony to my eyes, complete with periodic straining and rampant flashing that would send Matt Murdoch into a seizure. The fight choreography itself is also an issue, being directed with an obvious delaying emphasis that not only cut into my believability in the instance of women taking down guys more than twice their size, but also did nothing to fight the sanitized consistency of a PG-13 rating that scrubbed this film of any gore or brutality to peak my diminishing interests. As for the characterization, the film’s script bares a strange contrast to its action sequences, which convey the bigger problem in a film this dully uninteresting. As to where the action sequences often feel too bloated and redundant, the exposition in characterization feels rushed in everything from the formation of the group itself, to the way they perfectly gel together without even a momentary speed bump of limited chemistry between them. Because of such, these women are often defined by who they are outside of the group; these single-sentence summaries lacking any semblance of depth of imagination to the minimalist outlines serving as the biggest antagonist to the magnitude of the aforementioned spirited performances. There’s also not enough room at the table for each of them, despite the two-hour run time and endless opportunities that could’ve afforded each of them the kind of complimentary instances that justify their inclusion. The biggest victims are certainly Penelope Cruz, an Oscar winning actress in her own right, and Bingbing Fan, who joins the group with a half hour left in the movie, during a time when her backstory is sacrificed for a series of Asian stereotypes that made me cringe so hard, they could be heard by audience members surrounding me. Splash on top of it a series of obviously expected genre-heavy tropes, like the twists that I accurately predicted an hour before they even surfaced, and you’re left with a film that fails to ever create an identity of its own, instead relying on the familiarity of past installments that are played so tightly contested to the chest that we the audience often feel the dwindling air of originality escaping from it, like the smoke of a fired chamber. If the film took more creative chances, then its lifespan could certainly survive, the month, but as it stands, this one is doomed to be forgotten about almost instantly, made all the more tragic by the magnitude of star power in tow whose talents still aren’t enough to save it from the defining aspects of mediocrity.

OVERALL

Being that Kinberg was the same man who crafted the single worst installment in the X-Men franchise, his blundering blandness here is to be expected. What’s not expected, however, is that even despite the magnitude of work from an exceptionally talented cast, as well as a surprisingly subdued nature of its corresponding femininity, the film still feels like a soulless shell whose only justification is the January release date that it’s unfortunately saddled with. A thrill-less, spineless shell of a film doomed to fill a content quota on Netflix, or a bargain bin at Wal-Mart.

My Grade: 4/10 or D