This movie showed up on my Amazon Prime feed and the trailer was enticing. Yet, there is so much to hate about The 355. Take the title. Unless you see the trailer, it is not explained in the film until the final five minutes. It is a throw away piece of dialogue that they TITLED THE FILM after. How stupid is that?
However, the cast is pretty strong. You have three Academy Award winners: Jessica Chastain, Penelope Cruz, and Lupita Nyong’o. They lead a multi-national cast that frankly has every scene stolen by Diane Kruger as the German spy of their little United Nations of spydom in the film. I remember her most from National Treasure and continue to be shocked that film….no Oscars. (Just kidding.)
Anyway, you can tell from the advertising and the approach to the film, this is an attempt to be a James Bond or Mission: Impossible franchise…which this will not be. However, I do think this was better than the last Bond film…but that’s not saying much. It has a decent amount of intrigue, suspense and some very fun action sequences.
However, it all comes out a little blah. It just has no spice. The McGuffin is pretty standard stuff (a little box that let’s you hack everything in the world) and the bad guys are standard issue. They criminally underuse Jason Flemyng in this film. He should have been utilized as the heavy and not the villain which would have brought a stronger presence to the key conflict in the story.
That being said, it is a straightforward spy film with wild violent chases and fights, disguises, and good banter between the high octane cast members. They are all stunningly beautiful and every type of beauty is represented there. Sure, there aren’t any surprises…though they try…but it fills the screen with the thrills you look for from a film like this.
It was put on Peacock some time ago and recently hit Prime on Amazon. It was a big loser in financials ($80M to make it but grossed $25M in the theaters), but it is worth the price on streaming…as long as it is free. You should have a good time.