Heart of Stone
       
Director: Tom Harper
Year: 2023
Rating: 7.0
Wonder Woman is back! Well, not exactly Wonder Woman but Gal Gadot anyways as an agent trying to save the world who can take a few punches to the face. After the second WW film, I am happy to see her in action again. That was a stinker and from reading a few reviews here, so is this. A plethora of bad reviews all over the Internet, but perhaps that was a good thing. My expectations were so low I had to limbo to get underneath them. And what do you know, I may be the only person on planet earth to have enjoyed this. A lot of the criticisms are spot on, but I still enjoyed it. Dumb sure but so are all the action films these days. Stupidity is their trademark. Admittedly, I am a sucker for female oriented action films going way back to Jill kicking Jack down the hill and then continuing with Girls with Guns. For me it adds another layer to the action. Do we really need to see a 250-pound Reacher beat up people? What is the fun in that? But Gadot parachuting off of a mountain and getting down in time to kill six terrorists before they kill one of her team? That's fun. At least for me.

 

She is a part of a MI-5 team - the nerd who stays behind with all the tech to guide them through their mission. But, no. She is no nerd - that would be an interesting film - follow the nerd instead of the heroes. She is in fact a plant in MI-5 - she really works for the Charter - and here is where much of the criticism comes in. The Charter is a secret worldwide organization of agents who stop the bad guys. But they do it with the Heart - an AI computer system that can hack into everything on earth, knows everything and can predict the future to a large degree. So as the nerd turns into the action heroine, the Heart guides her down the mountain and helps her kill the bad guys and keep her cover secret. The Charter is run by Sophie Okonedo and Matthias Schweighöfer is the man at the controls.

 

Another party with less benevolent intentions has plans to get their hands on the Heart. This is the wonderful Alia Bhatt. If you want to see her in a really good Bollywood film watch Gangubai Kathiawadi or Gully Boy. There are four solid action set-pieces in the film. The first one of course starts before the credits roll. Did that start with Bond? Now every big action film seems to have to do it by law. Not that I mind. This was a good one. So was the chase through Lisbon. A city I really wish I had made it to. A few surprises along the way. But yes, the ability to hack into anything is so farfetched - at least for now. I think. In ten years maybe not.