Joining the spy thriller genre is the new female-led film, The 355, starring Oscar winners Jessica Chastain, Lupita Nyong’o, Penelope Cruz, and Lin Mi Sheng. The film is about a group of special agents that need to band together to retrieve a top-secret weapon that falls into a mercenary’s hands. This film is loaded with a top-notch cast who’s no stranger to being in great films. However, even great actors aren’t prone to being in some godawful films. This article will focus on the five terrible movies involving the cast of The 355. Each film has at least ten professional reviews. The only movies exempt from this list are animated features. Let’s get started with the first feature.
Stolen
In this unnecessarily depressing indie flick with an all-star cast, Stolen follows Tom Adkins Sr., who becomes obsessed with a 50-year-old murder, which happens to have odd similarities to his son’s disappearance. The premise of Stolen has solid potential and Jon Hamm is rightfully cast as the lead; however, this grim feature isn’t able to find its footing throughout its 1hour and 37-minute runtime. The big issue is Stolen goes back-and-forth from 1958 and 2008, which comes across as clunky and muddles a plot that isn’t all that interesting, to begin with. The film is technically sound, but the dialogue is often on-the-nose and what should’ve been a smart, mystery/drama turns out to be a bland mess that would perfectly fit in a cop procedural.
The Huntsman: Winter’s War
This Frozen knockoff focuses on Chris Hemsworth’s Huntsman, who’s raised with an army huntsman who protects the ice queen, Freya. Eric ends up falling in love with fellow warrior Sara, which breaks one of Freya major rules and the queen does whatever it takes to stop them. Just like its predecessor, The Huntsman: Winter’s War is a visual treat, but unfortunately, the 2016 film isn’t anything other than eye candy. Chris Hemsworth carries himself well in the lead role as The Huntsman, but he’s let down by a script that never justifies this prequel to Snow White & The Huntsman. Jessica Chastain and Emily Blunt are talented actresses in their own right, but they feel miscast in their respective roles. Blunt comes across as bored, instead of stoic and Chastain doesn’t feel natural as the love interest/ass kicker here. Despite so much going on, this crammed prequel is lacking energy due to the bland direction that doesn’t say anything interesting.
Sex and the City 2
The first Sex and the City was far from perfect, but it was a thousand times better than this unnecessary and meandering sequel. This time, Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda take an exotic vacation in Abu Dhabi, which holds unexpectedly surprises for the four women. The main reason that Sex and the City 2 fails is that the plot doesn’t have much meat on its bones. The actresses play their parts well, but none of the stories presented are particularly interesting. For a comedy, Sex and the City 2 is painfully unfunny. For a drama, it’s barely present for characters who act like little girls, and whatever heart that this series had in the beginning was beat to death for the sake of simply making money.
The Host
The Host was arguably the beginning of the end for young adult adaptations. This misguided and tedious film sees a world where Earth has been colonized by the Souls, and alien population that wipes out the minds of humans and turn their bodies into hosts. One of those bodies is Melanie, who is captured by a Seeker and has a Soul named Wanderer implanted in her body. However, Wanderer betrays her people, and the Seeker sets her sights to put an end to the alien. The Host follows the young adult adaptation formula perfectly; It’s a movie with an interesting premise and talented cast who are bogged down by unnecessary romance and nonsensical plotting. The Host fails to add a new voice to the genre and falls flat on its face, but in slow motion.
The Last Days of American Crime
This Netflix exclusive has an intriguing premise that’s drenched out in huge amounts of violence and bloodshed. The film follows two men and a woman who plan the perfect heist before a government-broadcast signal wipes out crimes forever. The Last Days of American Crime is all style and no substance, pulling the action ahead of any sort of character or plot development. For some weird reason, the premise takes itself way too seriously and the end result showcases a muddled mess of a film that doesn’t understand the meaning of fun entertainment. Even the action is pedestrian at best.
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