Review: ‘Heart of Stone’ continues Netflix’s long and storied tradition of making relentlessly bland action blockbusters

Describing Heart of Stone in the broadest terms makes it sound exactly like countless other action-packed blockbusters to roll off the Netflix production line, which isn’t a good thing.

There’s a large budget in place, an A-list star in the lead role (with Gal Gadot also producing), and highly-publicized claims made by the key creatives that a prospective new franchise is in place, one that’s gearing up to rival the established heavy hitters of its respective subgenre; which in this case is monolithic espionage sagas like James Bond, Jason Bourne, and Mission: Impossible.

It’s incredibly transparent that Netflix has eyes on a multi-film saga – which nobody involved has ever been shy about, in fairness – but the biggest issue with Tom Harper’s spy-centric epic is that it isn’t very good. Again, that’s an issue that’s plagued far too many Netflix exclusives to remember, but it would be helpful were the platform to not repeatedly ticking the same boxes over and over again without even trying to learn from its mistakes.

The opening set piece is ripped straight from the 007 back catalogue, with Gadot’s “inexperienced” field agent Rachel Stone introduced alongside her identikit compatriots lifted liberally from The Big Book of Action Cliches. There’s Jamie Dornan’s hard-edged and handsome Parker, Paul Ready’s exasperated Bailey, and Jing Lusi’s charismatic Yang, all overseen by Matthias Schweighöfer’s guy in the chair Jack of Hearts, and Sophie Okonedo’s walking exposition fountain Nomad.

Their mission goes wrong, instantly plunging Gadot’s hero into a preposterous chase sequence involving snow-capped mountains, electrical lines, a high-speed parachute, and plenty of the inconsistently unconvincing CGI that Netflix can never seem to run away from. Along the way, gaps are filled in about the mysterious “Charter” organization, the even more mysterious MacGuffin known as “The Heart,” before a midway twist that can be predicted within about a minute of the film beginning happens to precisely zero shock value.

From there, Alia Bhatt’s hacker Keya Dhawan partners up with the “surprise” villain of the piece to try and gain control of an AI with the potential to destabilize the entire planet from top to bottom, which is an unfortunate coincidence when Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning released a month ago and did pretty much the exact same thing on every level significantly better than Heart of Stone could hope to achieve.

There are a couple of highlights, though, with the hand-to-hand combat suitably crunchy and serving as a reminder that pixelated carnage is always going to play second fiddle to practical action, while Gadot delivers a strong turn in spite of the many shortcomings surrounding her, with Bhatt also making an impression in her English-language debut as the conflicted secondary antagonist who slowly sees her confidence chipped away as she realizes just how far in over her head she’s gotten.

The downside is that no individual character stands out as anything more than archetypal, with virtually every major player in the narrative doing exactly what you expect them to do in exactly the way you expect them to do it, robbing Heart of Stone completely of any tension, drama, or even remotely engaging stakes as a result, and of course there’s the endless parade of snappy one-liners and bickering banter that tends to fall short 99 percent of the time.

6 Underground, The Gray Man, Red Notice, The Mother, The Old Guard (adapted from the comic book written by Heart of Stone co-scribe Greg Rucka), and Extraction are just some of the previous Netflix titles to run through a near-identical set of tropes and trappings as its latest from big-name stars and globe-hopping antics via signposted story beats and derivative third acts, almost as if the streaming service has a one-page playbook for an entire that it resolutely refuses to deviate from under any circumstances, and another notable recurring thread throughout is that every single one of them drew in monstrous audiences, as well as racking up huge viewing figures.

The “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mantra is fine in microcosm, but when Heart of Stone is merely the next forgettable planet-spanning adventure to arrive in a sea of mediocrity, being guaranteed a spot at the top of the charts for a week or two isn’t really going to cut it. There are bright spots peppered throughout from start to finish, but nowhere near enough of them, and a couple of high-octane sequences or a barnstorming brawl here and there isn’t enough to overcome the searing sense of familiarity seeping out of every frame.

From the outside looking in, everything about Heart of Stone made it look like it was replicating Netflix’s blockbuster formula to a tee, and there’s nothing spread across its 123 minutes that’s going to do anything to change that perception. Without a shadow of a doubt, it’s very much a costly, star-studded, explosive attempt to build a brand new IP from the ground up that the company can call its own, but it’s impossible to shake the feeling that we’ve walked down this exact road many times before. Make of it what you will, but the end product is exactly what you think it’s going to be, for better or worse.