Heart of Stone receives brutal Rotten Tomatoes score
The first reviews are in for Gal Gadot's latest film Heart of Stone, and it's bad news for the espionage thriller.
The movie, which landed on Netflix on August 11, stars Gadot as Rachel Stone, an intelligence agent tasked with preventing a powerful AI tool, which can hack into any system in the world, from falling into dangerous hands.
Jamie Dornan and Alia Bhatt also star in the Tom Harper-directed film as an MI6 agent and super-hacker, respectively.
At the time of writing, Heart of Stone has a score of just 30% on Rotten Tomatoes from 93 reviews. While critics praised the film's action sequences and Gadot's acting, overall it received a negative response for its generic spy-action plot and overused twists.
Here's what the reviews have said.
Related: Heart of Stone ending explained: does Gal Gadot's Rachel survive?
Digital Spy
"Despite having the main ingredients for a traditional-yet-enjoyable spy thriller – a solid leading star, notable action sequences, multiple worldwide locations, unexpected plot twists — Heart of Stone lacks soul.
"Perhaps, because of being too worried in finding the perfect formula or hitting as many markets as possible, some of these Netflix originals are lacking what Rachel Stone keeps fighting for in Heart of Stone: a genuine human heart beating at the centre of it all."
CNN
"Gadot makes a striking protagonist even when she's a mere mortal who can't deflect bullets. Yet the structure of Heart of Stone doesn’t help by beginning in the middle and providing little in the way of backstory to separate Stone from any number of other cinematic spies."
The Observer
"There's very little that’s original in this Bond-alike adventure... The screenplay is a rudimentary thing – scaffolding to support the set pieces – that starts to creak whenever it attempts any depth of character. But the action is terrific."
Related: Heart of Stone director explains unexpected relevance of Netflix movie
The Independent
"Heart of Stone is an ideological mess. AI is great until it’s not, and then it’s fine because Gal Gadot can just kick someone in the face. It’s conflicted without embracing that conflict, resulting in a film that’s really about nothing at all."
Empire
"The real problem here is an absence of truly compelling characters, especially the lead; Gadot's role is too blandly written for her to have anything substantial to grip on to.
"Heart Of Stone is a perfectly watchable and often daft bit of fun, but its mission to supersede Ethan Hunt might prove to be impossible."
IGN
"Gadot is game but the nonstop action provides her almost no consequential downtime to build a realistic character. And even then, outside of the opening prologue, the action devolves into a loud mush of increasingly implausible and cliched scenarios."
Heart of Stone is in limited UK cinemas and on Netflix from August 11.
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