Brief Story Line
Mace (Jessica Chastain - IT Chapter Two, The Huntsman: Winter's War etc) was a CIA agent who was partnered with Nick (Sebastian Stan - The Falcon and the Winter Soldier TV series, The Devil All the Time etc) to retrieve a dangerous device from a Colombian agent Luis (Édgar Ramírez - Yes Day, The Girl on the Train etc).
When things did not go as planned, Mace enlisted the help of her old friend from British MI6, Khadijah (Lupita Nyong'o - Us, Black Panther etc) and later on cooperated with Germany BND agent Marie (Diane Kruger - The Operative, Inglourious Basterds etc) and also Colombian agent Graciela (Penélope Cruz - Vanilla Sky, Murder on the Orient Express etc).
So what would happen to Mace and the other agents as they worked out through their differences? And what was the role of the mysterious Lin (Fan Bingbing - Skiptrace, The Empress of China TV series etc) from China? You can find them all in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
When we saw this movie, the first impression we got was not truly impressive, especially during the early part. However, we still kept an open mind and it was rewarded once the action started as it was quite good and supported by surprisingly wonderful sound system. Yes, I was actually a bit reluctant seeing the movie in this studio as I had few experiences where the sound effects were below par. So having awesome sound here definitely increased my enjoyment level of this movie.
Anyway, as the story progressed (which was not of the highest quality), we were entertained by the vast amount of action. There were action scenes which I thought were brilliantly done especially the hand to hand fights by some of the main cast. In this area, I felt the main cast did their jobs admirably, especially their dedication in term of making sure we enjoyed them. From what I understand, Jessica Chastain performed some of the stunts herself, in which she even got a head injury that forced her to go to the hospital.
One thing that we thought could have been better would definitely be duration. I was a bit puzzled why it would be so long, but apparently the writers wanted to make a more exciting climax by giving us some shocking scenes. However, if they wanted to surprise audience by giving multiple twists, I thought it was a really poor attempt as they could all be easily guessed even from the start. I read that critics were not happy with this movie with most commented it as standard, cliche, generic and so on which I did not disagree. But as an action movie, I thought this one actually delivered. Sadly with such poor reception critically and commercially, it is unlikely the movie will be the start of a new franchise as the ending suggested.
In case you are wondering, the fights here were not the hyper violent type which would explain the rating of PG-13 in the US, although it was classified for 17+ in Indonesia. The movie did not have any mid or post end credit scenes, so you could immediately go to the rest room if you have been holding for nearly 2 hours. As fans for action-packed movies, my wife and I did enjoy this and thought it was quite thrilling. There was even a scene that was quite emotional for her. Although I got to admit that likely in the future, we might not even remember the film other than it being a female-led action movie.
So if you are looking for spy action movie that might not be very spectacular but entertaining enough, then you would likely enjoy this film. It was having a simple story that did not require us to scratch our heads and filled with lots of action sequence and an explosive final fight scene. But if you want something with wonderful story, great writing and incredible acting plus deep characters development, then you won't find them here. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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