REVIEW: ‘Heart of Stone’ is Highly Polished and Severely Bland

Director Tom Harper’s Heart of Stone has one of the most fitting titles in recent memory. Written by Greg Rucka and Allison Schroeder, the film is a tri-handed reference to the omnipotent supercomputer at the “heart” of the film’s plot, the protagonist’s name, and the cold, emotionally detached mindset required to excel as a field operative. Yet, it’s also unintentionally telling of the film’s true qualities. For as much as Harper’s spy-actioner attempts to emphasize humanity and heartfelt emotion as the world’s saving grace, as a cinematic experience, it’s deeply bland, hollow, and contrived—manifesting as a recycled amalgamation of every generic spy film ever committed to celluloid.

In attempting to break down its titular wordplay, Heart of Stone thoroughly overcompensates with an off-putting amount of schmaltz, making one beg for more icy personas to help bring it down to earth. Yet, it’s eye-rolling, utterly flat attempts at humor nip any possibility of that happening in the bud.

Gal Gadot stars as Rachel Stone, who appears to be an inexperienced technician on an elite MI6 unit headed by Agent Parker (Jamie Dornan). What her team doesn’t know is that Stone is actually an operative for The Charter—a covert cell of spies dedicated to maintaining world peace, even if it means keeping secrets from other well-intentioned agents. The Charter employs cutting-edge technology (most notably a statistical pathfinder) and consummate professionals like Stone, who prioritize duty over friendship.

When a routine mission is derailed by enigmatic hacker Keya Dhawan (Bollywood superstar Alia Bhatt), Stone’s two disparate lives collide, as she is forced to embrace her humanity as a key asset in her fight for peace.

While far from revelatory, Heart of Stone’s setup has great genre potential. Unfortunately, for all it hints at through its globetrotting adventure, it only does three things well: a great climactic explosion, a few pleasant compositions, and Dornan’s suavely thick Northern Irish accent. The rest of the film’s runtime is dedicated to CGI-riddled spectacle that lacks any sense of impact and stakes, especially when the dreamy-looking operatives appear completely unphased, even after taking the mother of all beatings.

The agents of Heart of Stone are more akin to shampoo models than grizzled, determined spies, and therein lies its chief downfall. Though armed with a cast that wonderfully works on paper, its prime elements end up becoming its biggest weaknesses. Though Gadot’s wooden performance initially fits her character’s arc, as Stone is caught between her oath and longing for companionship, it quickly unearths diminishing returns. With her muted visage taking on the same emotions and inflections, whether Stone’s hacking a terminal or skydiving through the air. Gadot’s refusal to relinquish her stoic beauty, even in the gravest of situations plants each sequence firmly in the domain of camp rather than in the emotionally immense realm it aims for.

Moreover, Bhatt’s Hollywood debut is nothing to write home about, with her turn as the wisecracking Keya standing in stark contradiction to her trademark nuance. Her comedic timing is woefully off, rendering each subsequent witticism more eye-rolling and jarring than the next. Bhatt’s confused performance is made worse by the stilted character writing, causing her late transition to be one that is wholly abrupt and unearned. An actor of her caliber is deserving of more, especially in what is, for many, an introduction to her talents.

Matthias Schweighöfer, Sophie Okendo, BD Wong, and Glenn Close do their best to make an impression but rarely get a chance to even play second fiddle, often thrust into woefully talky sequences that dump little else but exposition on the audience. Even the charming Dornan is left high and dry before the film’s second act takes off.

When it comes to the action, Heart of Stone is, at its best, serviceable. But often mires the film in a lifeless, grey-tinged color palette that evokes many of its hollow, big-budgeted counterparts, namely another aptly titled Netflix original: The Gray Man. Moreover, the action sequences are edited in a manner that zaps them of any sense of tension, abruptly shifting from long shots to first-person angles without any calculated method. Though some of it looks interesting, rarely does any of it become as memorable as the film suggests, with all of it hazily blending into one another, cementing an incongruous whole. Many set pieces also end before getting a chance to begin truly, with the stakes so shoddily arranged that any notion of danger is immediately quelled.

Heart of Stone is a film with dashes of personality that are sprinkled too far and few between, with its most exciting moments happening before its colorfully animated title sequence—a rare moment that pops with originality even though it’s short-lived. It’s an experience that stays neutral all the way to the credits, with very few peaks along its road of troughs. In predictable fashion, Harper’s actioner hints are more adventures to come, Yet, with a collective so flavorless, who would want to indulge in a second course?

Heart of Stone is streaming exclusively on Netflix August 11, 2023.