movie review of 355

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“The 355” amasses some of the most talented and electrifying actresses in the world, then squanders them in a generic and forgettable action picture.

Jessica Chastain is among them, and she helped shepherd the film from the beginning as one of its producers. It’s easy to see what the appeal is here: A glamorous and globe-trotting spy thriller in which women get to work together, kick ass, and save the day for a change. One of the through-lines in “The 355” is the way in which these characters get out from under the oppression of condescending mansplainers and actually get things done. You don’t have to be a gorgeous secret agent to relate to that dynamic.

And yet that notion is one of so many elements in director and co-writer Simon Kinberg ’s film that feel frustratingly half-baked. There’s not much to these women besides a couple of character traits, and the moments when they might reveal something deeper or more substantial about themselves are fleeting. The muscular physicality of the action sequences—the backbone of any film like this—is unsatisfying. Shaky camerawork and quick edits obscure the choreography and effort that went into staging the elaborate chases and fight scenes, making these moments more annoying than exciting.

Even the costume design is a let-down. In Chastain, Lupita Nyong’o, Diane Kruger , and Penelope Cruz , you have four actresses of significant craft and range who also happen to be stunners capable of wearing any kind of wardrobe choice with style and grace. Except for a high-dollar auction in Shanghai, “The 355” misses the opportunity to dress these women in show-stopping ensembles as they travel from city to city, which would have heightened the sense of glittering escapism. As for the film’s fifth star, Bingbing Fan, she’s barely there until the film’s very end, although its marketing would suggest otherwise.

What they’re all after is the blandest of McGuffins in the script from Kinberg (“X-Men: Dark Phoenix”) and longtime TV writer Theresa Rebeck (“NYPD Blue,” “Smash”). It’s a flash drive containing a data key that can wreak havoc with the touch of a few keystrokes: shut down power grids and destabilize financial markets, launch nukes, and send satellites tumbling from the sky. Not that it matters what it does—it’s the thing that sets the plot in motion—but this happens to be a particularly uninspired bad-guy do-hickey. It’s so amorphous, you never truly feel the threat of its potential danger.

At the film’s start, Chastain’s hotheaded CIA operative, Mason “Mace” Brown, and her partner, Nick ( Sebastian Stan ), pose as newlyweds to meet up in Paris with the Colombian intelligence agent who has the device (an underused Edgar Ramirez ). (Chastain and Stan, who previously worked together on “ The Martian ,” are supposedly best friends who are secretly in love with each other, but they have zero chemistry.) Kruger, as bad-ass German operative Marie, intercepts it instead, leading to one of the movie’s many dizzying action sequences. Mace brings in her reluctant former MI6 pal, the brilliant hacker Khadijah (Nyong’o), to trace its location. But Cruz, as the Colombian psychologist Dr. Graciela Rivera, also gets dragged into the fray; implausibly, she was sent into the field to find Ramirez’s character and bring him home.

Eventually it becomes clear that all of these women must set aside their differences and team up to find the device: "They get this, they start World War III,” Mace says to Khadijah in one of the movie’s many, many examples of clunky exposition. But first, a fistfight between Mace and Marie involving frozen seafood, which isn’t nearly as fun as it sounds. And the moment in which they all stand around, screaming inane dialogue and pointing guns at each other before reaching an uneasy détente, could not be staged or shot more awkwardly.

One of the film’s most egregious sins is the way it wastes Cruz’s formidable presence and ability. She plays the frightened fish out of water, eager to get home to her husband and sons. As if her character’s inclusion weren’t contrived enough, she’s then asked to be cowering and meek, which aren’t exactly her strong suits.

And yet, there are a couple of scenes that indicate how much better “The 355” could have been. At one point, after achieving a victory, they all sit around drinking beer and swapping war stories, and the blossoming camaraderie on display makes you wish there were more of that. The idea of them rejecting their male-dominated agencies, being on their own, and having to rely on each other for survival is also intriguing—like a more violent version of “9 to 5.”

“James Bond never has to deal with real life,” Mace tells Khadijah at one point. “James Bond always ends up alone,” Khadijah responds, in an exchange that inches closer to something resembling real and relatable human experience. Somewhere in here is the seed of the idea that inspired Chastain in the first place: exploring the sacrifices women often make when they choose career over family, and chasing the tantalizing fantasy that we can have it all. But then the insistent, drum-heavy score starts up again, overwhelming everything, and it’s back to the next shootout or explosion.

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Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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The 355 (2022)

Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence, brief strong language, and suggestive material.

122 minutes

Jessica Chastain as Mason 'Mace' Brown

Lupita Nyong'o as Khadijah

Penélope Cruz as Graciela

Diane Kruger as Marie

Fan Bingbing as Lin Mi Sheng

Sebastian Stan as Nick

Edgar Ramírez

Emilio Insolera as Hacker

Leo Staar as Grady

Simon Kinberg

Writer (story by)

Theresa Rebeck

Cinematographer

Tim Maurice-Jones
John Gilbert

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The 355 Reviews

“The 355” has an “Ocean’s Eight” vibe (2018) in that it cares more about women linking up more than the actual story when it should not have to be a choice.

Full Review | Jun 10, 2024

The 355 left me frustrated and disappointed A great concept An excellent cast & terrible pacing, execution, & even one note characters.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

While The 355 certainly does not bring anything electrifying to the action genre, there is something wonderful about seeing an action movie led by five women who are 38 years old or older.

Here’s the 411 on The 355 — it’s a bloated bore.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 2, 2022

The 355 could've been a much better spy thriller under a more capable director, but the kick-ass, highly-capable female cast saves the movie and made this an enjoyable action movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 3, 2022

“The 355” won’t exactly stick with you long after seeing it, nor is it the kind of movie that will wow you with its originality and vision. But it is light and breezy entertainment that happily wears its influences on it’s sleeve.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 16, 2022

Oh-so-basic with its killer lady spies, their battle against misogyny and their quest to claim some much-needed on-screen space.

Full Review | Jun 25, 2022

A rehash of countless similar films, just as mediocre or insufferable, but here male camaraderie is replaced by female complicity. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Jun 16, 2022

In this tangle of platitudes, feminist discourses, and vertiginous persecutions, the film is nothing more than a clumsy reflection of what it wants to enfranchise itself from. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | May 18, 2022

Offers no great surprises. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | May 16, 2022

The fact that the end product of this dream team-up is so bland and uninspired makes it feel that much more disappointing.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | May 9, 2022

So if most of the cast delivers, what's the problem? Clues point to Kinberg and Theresa Rebeck's script. It throws around terms like "brush pass" and "kill box," but also gives us dialogue like this: "A man must cover his tracks." "Yes he does." ...what?

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 19, 2022

This film is an exercise in formula with an eye to setting up sequels, and the main reason it works as well as it does is the chemistry between the lead players.

Full Review | Apr 1, 2022

Aggressively average.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 26, 2022

The 355 boasts an incredible cast of powerhouse actresses from around the world, who are given a bland, formulaic script unbefitting of their talent.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/10 | Mar 25, 2022

What The 355 offers up is a perfect Saturday afternoon dad movie, but instead of starring Stallone or Eastwood or Bronson, it stars five women with six Oscar nominations and two wins between them. (And was written by the creator of NBCs Smash!)

Full Review | Mar 19, 2022

...the arms-length atmosphere compounded by a continuing emphasis on ineffective, lackluster set-pieces...

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 26, 2022

This movie might have an incredible cast, but that doesnt save it from being completely mediocre, very forgettable, and honestly, a bit dull.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 23, 2022

The main problem is that Kinberg, a better screenwriter and producer than director, hired award-caliber actors to play low-grade roles. It didn't work.

Full Review | Original Score: F | Feb 12, 2022

Despite the amazing work of its cast, this espionage saga lacks thrills and originality. Full Review in Spanish

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 12, 2022

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The 355 review: A sleek, silly, and surprisingly fun female spy thriller

Hey, ladies.

There's a general idea in show business that January is where movies go to die, a dumpster month for studios looking to quietly burn off the cursed and broken projects still lingering in last year's outbox. The fact that The 355 has landed there twice now (it was originally scheduled for release at the start of 2021, then delayed for COVID) fits pretty neatly into that narrative: Why else would a big-budget action film starring a cadre of internationally famous actresses slink so quietly into the post-holiday wasteland? A bland marketing campaign didn't help; neither did a corny, almost comically generic trailer . So it's a nice surprise to find out that the movie (in theaters this Friday and on Peacock Feb. 25) is frequently fun and far smarter than your average January-boneyard bear — a sleek popcorn spy flick that deserves better than slow death by in-flight entertainment, though that's probably its destiny.

The story begins, purposefully or not, in a wash of testosterone: a Colombian drug lord, a malevolent-rich-guy buyer, a SWAT team swarm emerging from the jungle. Except the product for sale isn't powder; it's some of kind of dark-web data key powerful enough to take down entire city grids and make airplanes fall from the sky. (As in most movies like this, the technology is generally so advanced it might as well be a wizard wand). When the narco's smartphone-size death star lands in the hands of a scared SWAT member ( The Undoing 's Edgar Ramirez), CIA agents Mason "Mace" Brown ( Jessica Chastain ) and Nick Fowler ( Sebastian Stan ) are sent to Paris to retrieve it. Unfortunately, a German agent named Marie ( Diane Kruger ) has the same goal, and a better grasp of the French Metro system; the end-times key gets away.

In the aftermath Mace turns to an old friend, Khadijah ( Lupita Nyong'o ), a former MI6 agent now working in London as a TED-talky tech specialist. This is the kind of crime she's made for, but a second failed attempt leaves them only with fewer bullets and an extremely reluctant new field agent: Penelope Cruz 's Graciela, a staff psychologist for Colombian intelligence who would very much like to be excused from this narrative and go home to her husband and kids. Instead she's conscripted into the team, along with Marie ("the enemy of my enemy is my friend") and eventually Lin Mi Sheng (Chinese superstar Fan Bingbing), another agent with a singular gift for IT. Hot pursuits in Moroccan souks and Shanghai high-rises follow, as they are wont to do when the fate of the free world is at stake; so, inevitably, does female bonding and a not-small body count.

The script, by Simon Kinberg ( Mr. and Mrs. Smith , the X-Men franchise), who also directed, and Theresa Rebeck ( Smash ), is both ludicrous and functional: One-liners and weapons (a fist, a lamp, even an oyster shell) fly; double crosses are flipped and tripled back again. The familiar marks 355 hits — sneering, stubbled villains; glittery international set pieces; things that go boom — follow the smoothed-down grooves of a thousand other thrillers, and everyone in it is so ridiculously good-looking they probably should have called it Only 10s . But the story moves along crisply, and the stars, who have all easily been in better films, elevate the material so breezily they tend to make even the most ludicrous moments float.

Also tucked into the broad flash and fight-clubbiness of the plot are keener little character notes: Chastain's Mace kills large men with calm efficiency, but when she's confronted with high scaffolding she stops to draw a sharp breath, then skip-walks like an awkward stork (or more refreshingly, a recognizable human). And Cruz's panicked, charming Graciela, the token civilian, finds uses for her therapy skills that actually make sense; when she and Nyong'o are on screen, it's not hard to remember there are at least two Oscars in the room. (The fact that all but one of the leads is over 40, though age is never mentioned or even implied, feels radical in its own way too). Maybe January will bury The 355 , but frankly it feels like the kind of movie bleak mid-winter was made for: Starry, silly escapism with pop-feminist flare and a passport. Grade: B

‘The 355’ Review: Jessica Chastain, Sebastian Stan, and Penélope Cruz in a Vigorous Formula Action Spy Flick

It's a generic but energized out-of-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire thriller that mostly holds your attention.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

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It’s not usually a good idea to grade a movie on the curve of when it’s being released. But in the case of “ The 355 ,” one is tempted to make an exception and say: For a first-week-of-January thriller, it isn’t bad. Early January tends to be a dumping ground, because the prestige awards contenders are still opening wide; it’s when you’ll get a shark drama that’s too lousy to be a trashy summer movie. But “The 355” is a vigorous formula action spy flick with an out-of-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire plot that mostly holds your attention, periodically revs the senses, and gives its actors just enough to work with to put a basic feminine spin on the genre. I make a point of that because the film does too.

The heroines are a quartet of espionage veterans who come from different countries but share a certain rogue mystique. Mace ( Jessica Chastain ), who works for the CIA, is assigned to retrieve a data-key drive that can do anything (blow up a plane in midair, penetrate any closed computer system) and is therefore ripe to be stolen by an international band of criminal entrepreneurs. In Paris, where she’s supposed to pick up the drive from a Colombian mercenary (Édgar Ramirez), she’s accompanied by her long-time agent colleague, Nick ( Sebastian Stan ), who suggests that they shore up their undercover identities as honeymooning rubes by actually becoming a couple. To our surprise, Mace agrees — but thanks to the monkey wrench thrown into their plan by Marie (Diane Kruger), a rival German BND agent, the union doesn’t last.

Popular on Variety

The four join forces to hunt down the drive, a countdown-to-the-apocalypse-with-MacGuffin plot speckled with well-staged overwrought action. These ace operatives have been trained to do it all: windpipe-bashing combat, existential chases through the crowded squares of Morocco, drop-of-the-hat surveillance and, of course, flaunting an attitude of utilitarian iciness that’s a match for any male movie spy. The element that comes closest to giving the film a personality is that most of them aren’t satisfied with the lone-wolf bravado that comes of being an international woman of mystery. Their view seems to be: We’ve got the moves like Bond, but sociopathic isolation is for suckers.

As action storytelling, “The 355” is generic, over-the-top, and 20 minutes too long, kind of like a Netflix movie. But it’s the well-made version of that corporate brew. Chastain has recently been showing a lighter side; her performance in “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” has an operatic playfulness, and in “The 355,” which she’s one of the producers of, you can feel the pleasure she takes in letting her hair down and biting into the role of haughty action heroine. Kruger has the moxie to play Marie as a standoffish neurotic, Nyong’o creates an unusually emotional hacker, and Cruz, as the one who’s more devoted to her family than to global realpolitik, proves the sweetest of wild cards. The less revealed about what happens to Sebastian Stan’s Nick the better, though he plays it with a baby-faced malice that’s hard to resist.

In the second half, the director, Simon Kinberg (“X-Men: Dark Phoenix”), takes his heroines to Shanghai, where they have to retrieve the drive from an art auction that’s a cover for a dark-web bidding war, which makes the film feel a bit like a heist thriller. So does the arrival of Bingbing Fan as a Chinese undercover agent who joins the team. But no “Ocean’s” sequel ever had this much machine-gun battle. Kinberg pads the film out with what some might call bravura action scenes, but while they’re tightly choreographed and edited, the fact that we haven’t seen women go through these paces nearly as often as men doesn’t make the scenes any less heavy (or noisy) in their bombast. The idea, of course, is that the action is going to sell the movie. But you have to wonder: If “The 355,” named for an anonymous female agent during the time of the American Revolution, were closer to a movie like “Widows,” which it sometimes resembles, and further from an “Expendables” sequel, it might actually have been more commercial. A January movie doesn’t have to give us too much of an okay thing.

Reviewed online, Jan. 5, 2022. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 122 MIN.

Production: A Universal Pictures release of an SK Genre, Film Nation Entertainment, Freckle Films production. Producers: Kelly Carmichael, Jessica Chastain, Simon Kinberg. Executive producer: Richard Hewitt.
Crew: Director: Simon Kinberg. Screenplay: Theresa Rebeck, Simon Kinberg. Camera: Tim Maurice-Jones. Editors: John Gilbert, Lee Smith. Music: Tom Holkenborg.
With: Jessica Chastain, Sebastian Stan, Penélope Cruz, Lupita Nyong’o, Diane Kruger, Bingbing Fan, Jason Flemyng, Pablo Scola, Édgar Ramirez.

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User reviews

Penélope Cruz, Diane Kruger, Bingbing Fan, Jessica Chastain, and Lupita Nyong'o in The 355 (2022)

When a top-secret weapon falls into mercenary hands, a wild-card C.I.A. agent joins forces with three international agents on a mission to retrieve it, while staying a step ahead of a myster... Read all When a top-secret weapon falls into mercenary hands, a wild-card C.I.A. agent joins forces with three international agents on a mission to retrieve it, while staying a step ahead of a mysterious woman who's tracking their every move. When a top-secret weapon falls into mercenary hands, a wild-card C.I.A. agent joins forces with three international agents on a mission to retrieve it, while staying a step ahead of a mysterious woman who's tracking their every move.

Simon Kinberg
Theresa Rebeck
Jessica Chastain
Penélope Cruz
Bingbing Fan
490 User reviews
187 Critic reviews
40 Metascore
3 wins & 3 nominations

Top cast 99+

Graciela Rivera

Lin Mi Sheng

Marie Schmidt

Khadijah Adiyeme

Nick Fowler

(as Édgar Ramirez)

Elijah Clarke

Jonas Muller

Larry Marks

Agent Team Leader Ramirez

(as Sebastian Capitan Viveros)

All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

Trivia The title is a reference to Agent 355, which was the codename of an unidentified female spy who fought for the Patriots during the American Revolution.
Goofs During the pier scene, Marie uses a JCB telehandler to gain access over the water onto the boat. She is seen 'flicking' the lever, then standing on a forked pallet which moves forward as the boom extends. This is impossible as all modern plant machinery, as seen in this scene, operates on a deadman switch basis. That is, once the switch or lever is released all operations immediately stop. This is for obvious safety reasons. An operator has to be in control at all times, and in most modern machines, someone has to be sitting in the seat as this activates a secondary switch that overrides and shuts down the whole system if the operator leaves the seat for any reason.

Mace : Hi Nick, do you remember the story they told us about in training? Washington's female agent, agent 355. That's what they called her?

Nick Fowler : Because they did not know her name.

Mace : No somebody knew her name. They just did not want the world to know it.

Connections Featured in The Graham Norton Show: Tom Hanks/Jessica Chastain/Emily Blunt/Jamie Dornan/Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall/Nish Kumar/Sophie Ellis-Baxtor (2020)
Soundtracks Dima Labes Written by Klay BBJ Published by Klay BBJ Performed by Klay BBJ and Rayan Licensed courtesy of CHBK Music

User reviews 490

Jan 7, 2022
How long is The 355? Powered by Alexa
Looking at the promo photos, I see Marion Cotillard in all of them, why isn't she listed in the cast?
January 7, 2022 (United States)
United States
Official Facebook
Official Instagram
Shanghai, China (Taipei, Taiwan)
Universal Pictures
CAA Media Finance
FilmNation Entertainment
See more company credits at IMDbPro
$75,000,000 (estimated)
$14,570,455
Jan 9, 2022
$27,827,745

Technical specs

Runtime 2 hours 2 minutes
Dolby Atmos

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The 355 Review

Meh-ssion: impossible..

The 355 premieres in theaters on Friday, Jan. 7.

Born of an idea star Jessica Chastain had while working with director Simon Kinberg on X-Men: Dark Phoenix about an all-female Mission: Impossible-style espionage team, The 355 starts off with decent energy and good intentions, but then devolves into a mess of sluggish clichés, predictable twists, and obvious arcs. And also, possibly, a (pandemic-necessitated?) green-screened Bingbing Fan. More on that later, though...

As an origin tale that clumsily lobbies for further adventures, The 355 brings together badass spies (and one psychologist) from different countries for a global squad of butt-kickers, at first all at cross-purposes, scrambling to get their hands on a dangerous piece of tech that can be weaponized to target anything that's online. For a while, mostly during the first act, the action pieces and chase sequences dazzle, enough to distract from the thin characters and emaciated dialogue. But somewhere around the movie's middle the story loses steam and the actual combining of these warriors into a functioning unit never quite rises to the occasion.

In their various ways, each of the four heroes (plus, the third act addition of the aforementioned Fan) is at a different state of their spy career. Some have no experience while others are too far gone in the game, distant and distrustful of everyone. Chastain's Mace, the CIA agent here, is just a few shades greener than Diane Kruger's German agent, Marie, as Mace still harbors hope for love, despite being burned before. Together, though, they're similarly driven and stubborn enough to be enemies at first.

The core cast -- of Chastain, Kruger (replacing Marion Cotillard, who can still be spotted in early publicity shoots), Lupita Nyong'o, and Penélope Cruz -- is solid, and Chastain makes for a stalwart, default Danny Ocean-type leader (right down to her weakness), but none of them are able to quite overcome the story's lack of wit and paucity of heart. If The 355 had few more moments of levity, or if it maybe made more of an attempt to rise above the absolute basics of the genre, the fact that each character is only given their "one thing" to care about would be easier to overlook.

From Paris to London to Morocco, the ladies' mission traverses the world, with each spot necessitating different types of tactics. Some require guns a' blazing while others call for formal wear and flirting. Chastain and Kruger get the most hand-to-hand action, and both shine as formidable fighters during strong stunt sequences, but the standout of the squad is Nyong'o, whose MI6 "gal in the chair" nicely shifts from cyber-scouring assistant to lethal field agent.

The best spy movie franchise is...

Cruz's character, sadly, feels like the most wasted element here, as the one woman in the bunch with no combat training. Not only does The 355 not take enough comedic advantage of her being the fish out of water, but the premise is hammered home so much that you expect the twist to be that she's actually a violent agent hiding her abilities. But that swerve never happens, which is a pity because it would have been the only fun twist in the entire story. And sticking with that, as the film heads into its endgame, it seems to lose most of its interest in what it started.

Sure, a lot of movies crumble at the finish, but The 355, particularly, seems to rush through a lot so it can wrap things up and spread its franchise wings. Not that what we're given as a villain is all that exciting, but everything here, past the midway point, is just treated like a stepping stone to get the characters into future installments.

Sebastian Stan and Édgar Ramírez round out the cast, playing their rather rote roles admirably. The best that can be said for them is that they feel way more vital to the film than Chinese star Bingbing Fan, who's not only a late addition to the story, but also seems like she filmed little to no scenes with the rest of the cast. And if she wasn't green-screened into the film (which it looks like), the staging sure makes it look like she was, which just from a blocking standpoint, makes this ensemble feel pretty uncoordinated.

The 355 did its first job correctly, which was to assemble a fun female cast who you'd want to see kick ass all over the world in an espionage adventure. It did not, however, deliver on its second (and arguably more important) task, which was to deliver a fresh and engaging story that fondly recalls old school while ushering in new school. Instead, it's all just underwhelming and obvious. Some of the action pieces are energetic enough to trick you into thinking there's substance to the story, but it's clear by the second act that this is an empty op.

More Reviews by Matt Fowler

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Entertainment

‘The 355’ review: Jessica Chastain and company lead this solid if by-the-numbers spy thriller

Movie review.

It’s always a little suspect when too much is made of a big action movie being “female-fronted.” Unfortunately, Hollywood has decided lately that in correcting for decades of gender inequity in certain genres, it’s not enough to just make an action-packed movie starring more than one woman: They must let the audience know that they know that this is A Girl Power Moment. And frankly, whether it’s the lady Avengers assembling in “Infinity War,” a montage of Girls Doing Sports and Science in the latest “Charlie’s Angels” or all of “Ocean’s 8,” it’s never not insulting to its purported audience.

There have been subtler, cleverer and just plain better efforts at bringing women to the forefront of so-called male genres (from “Widows” to “Spy”), but it’s hard not to go into something like “The 355,” which has been written about as a female “Jason Bourne” meets “Mission: Impossible” for over four years, a little wary. We’ve been burned before, no matter how many Oscar nominees are on the poster. And this one is dripping in photogenic talent, with Jessica Chastain as a CIA agent, Diane Kruger as a German spy, Lupita Nyong’o as a former MI6 operative and Penélope Cruz as a Colombian psychologist who all find themselves searching for the movie’s McGuffin.

“The 355” — directed by Simon Kinberg (“X-Men: Dark Phoenix”), who co-wrote with Theresa Rebeck (“Smash”) — is not an instant classic by any means. It is, however, a straightforward and solidly entertaining spy thriller that (mostly) avoids the impulse to pat itself on the back too obviously. Well, that is until a cringey “two months later” sequence at the end that leaves the door open for a welcome sequel. But there’s enough good preceding that moment to almost excuse it and much of that has to do with its cast, which also includes Sebastian Stan, Edgar Ramírez and Bingbing Fan.

The premise isn’t groundbreaking and at times even a little predictable: There’s a microchip floating around that can access any closed system, and all the bad guys in the world want it. And there are many, many intelligence agencies trying to stop it from getting in the wrong hands. More than a few aren’t just playing for one team either. As in most every spy movie for the past 50 years, there’s talk of impending World War III, but no one is coming to this for original stakes.

And “The 355” hits all the expected beats ably. Their globe-trotting brings them to sleek high-rises and crowded markets, they fight in hoodies and in heels, they get glammed up at a major auction (all spies deserve at least one black tie affair in the middle of all the chaos), and they even get to share a beer and a few war stories.

The main characters are a little simply drawn and you’re bound to get sick of Chastain’s nickname (“Mace”), but the actors give them enough depth to pass. Not only do you believe that these are all smart, capable women (who show you that instead of telling), they also all seem like they’ve lived lives before the cameras started shooting them. Nyong’o, in particular, is a standout as the tech wiz who was trying to move on with her life. Kruger does a great job elevating her character beyond “angry, loner German.” Cruz gets the short stick as the fish out of water, but she’s still fun to have in the mix.

Mostly, “The 355” succeeds where others have come up short because it put the movie and the story first — not the message.

With Jessica Chastain, Diane Kruger, Lupita Nyong’o, Penélope Cruz, Sebastian Stan, Edgar Ramírez, Bingbing Fan. Directed by Simon Kinberg, from a screenplay by Kinberg and Theresa Rebeck. 122 minutes. Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence, brief strong language, and suggestive material. Opens Thursday, Jan. 5, at multiple theaters.

‘The 355’ Review: Exile in Bondville

Jessica Chastain, Penélope Cruz, Lupita Nyong’o, Diane Kruger and Fan Bingbing star in an espionage thriller that’s slick but banal.

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By Amy Nicholson

Two centuries before James Bond 007, there was Agent 355, a lady spy on George Washington’s side during the American Revolutionary War who helped identify the turncoat Benedict Arnold . Her name was hidden from history, but her code number has been claimed by this slick and grim espionage flick that aspires to become an all-star, all-female franchise — the Spice Girls version of Bond. Jessica Chastain, a producer and star of the movie, even used Twitter to crowdsource casting suggestions for a “#BondBoy.”

Why not? But we’re going to need a better plot than one built around a bunch of heroes and terrorists chasing after yet another doomsday gizmo. Chastain’s Mace Browne, a C.I.A. workaholic repulsed by romantic commitment, is hellbent on securing a one-of-a-kind cyber-whatsit able to hack into and hijack any computer-controlled device on the planet, from a power grid to a plane. This device could start World War III, Mace warns an MI6 computer whiz, Khadijah (Lupita Nyong’o), in a rusty clunker of a line that warns the audience that the only novelty in Simon Kinberg’s thriller is the cast. It doesn’t take a super sleuth to fill in the rest. There will be lectures on teamwork, confessions squeezed out “the easy way or the hard way” and speeches about the invisible front lines of modern warfare, all rote hubbub building toward a blowout gun battle that makes sure to set aside a bad boyfriend for a sequel.

But what a cast. Chastain and Nyong’o rumble with Diane Kruger, peer pressure Penélope Cruz and are struck dumb by Fan Bingbing , who saunters in halfway through to shake things up. Individually, the women represent the differing national security interests of the United States, England, Germany, Colombia and China; their pitiful male colleagues, however — the lovesick partner (Sebastian Stan) who uses a sting operation to make Mace playact as his fiancée, the distrustful boss (Sylvester Groth) who diagnoses Kruger’s near-feral street fighter with daddy issues — make a case for the women to form a feminist Brawlers Without Borders.

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Review: A solid if by-the-numbers spy thriller in ‘The 355’

This image provided by Universal Pictures shows Penelope Cruz as Graciela, Jessica Chastain as Mason “Mace” Brown, Diane Kruger as Marie and Lupita Nyong’o as Khadijah in a scene from “The 355,” co-written and directed by Simon Kinberg. (Universal Pictures via AP)

This image provided by Universal Pictures shows Jessica Chastain as Mason “Mace” Brown in a scene from “The 355,” co-written and directed by Simon Kinberg. (Robert Viglasky/Universal Pictures via AP)

This image provided by Universal Pictures shows Lupita Nyong’o as Khadijah in a scene from “The 355', co-written and directed by Simon Kinberg. (Robert Viglasky/Universal Pictures via AP)

This image provided by Universal Pictures shows Penelope Cruz in a scene from the film “The 355.” (Robert Viglasky/Universal Pictures via AP)

This image provided by Universal Pictures shows Lupita Nyong’o in a scene from the film “The 355.” (Robert Viglasky/Universal Pictures via AP)

This image provided by Universal Pictures shows Bingbing Fan in a scene from the film “The 355.” (Universal Pictures via AP)

This image provided by Universal Pictures shows Diane Kruger, from left, Jessica Chastain and Lupita Nyong’o from the film “The 355.” (Robert Viglasky/Universal Pictures via AP)

This image provided by Universal Pictures shows Sebastian Stan, left, and Jessica Chastain in a scene from the film “The 355.” (Robert Viglasky/Universal Pictures via AP)

This image provided by Universal Pictures shows Sebastian Stan in a scene from the film “The 355.” (Robert Viglasky/Universal Pictures via AP)

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It’s always a little suspect when too much is made of a big action movie being “female-fronted.” Unfortunately, Hollywood has decided lately that in course correcting for decades of gender inequity in certain genres that it’s not enough to just make an action-packed movie starring more than one woman: They must let the audience know that they know that this is A Girl Power Moment. And frankly, whether it’s the lady Avengers assembling in “Infinity War,” a montage of Girls Doing Sports and Science in the latest “Charlie’s Angels,” or all of “Ocean’s 8,” it’s never not insulting to its purported audience.

There have been subtler, cleverer and just plain better efforts at bringing women to the forefront of so-called male genres (from “Widows” to “Spy”), but it’s hard not to go into something like “ The 355 ,” which has been written about as a female “Jason Bourne” meets “Mission: Impossible” for over four years, a little wary. We’ve been burned before, no matter how many Oscar nominees are on the poster. And this one is dripping in photogenic talent, with Jessica Chastain as a CIA agent, Diane Kruger as a German spy, Lupita Nyong’o as a former MI6 operative and Penélope Cruz as a Colombian psychologist who all find themselves searching for the movie’s McGuffin.

“The 355,” directed by Simon Kinberg (“X-Men: Dark Phoenix”) who co-wrote with Theresa Rebeck (“Smash”), is not an instant classic by any means. It is, however, a straightforward and solidly entertaining spy thriller that (mostly) avoids the impulse to pat itself on the back too obviously. Well, that is until a cringey “two months later” sequence at the end that leaves the door open for a welcome sequel. But there’s enough good preceding that moment to almost excuse it and much of that has to do with its cast, which also includes Sebastian Stan, Edgar Ramírez and Bingbing Fan.

And “The 355” hits all the expected beats ably, though at times it also makes you appreciate just how good a spoof Paul Fieg’s “Spy” is. Their globetrotting brings them to sleek high-rises and crowded markets, they fight in hoodies and in heels, they find an excuse for our heroines to get glammed up at a major auction (all spies deserve at least one black tie affair in the middle of all the chaos), and they even get to share a beer and a few war stories.

The main characters are a little simply drawn and you’re bound to get sick of Chastain’s nickname (“Mace”), but the actors give them enough depth to pass. Not only do you believe that these are all smart, capable women (who show you that instead of telling), they also all seem like they’ve all lived lives before the cameras started shooting them. Nyong’o, in particular, is a standout as the tech wiz who was trying to move on with her life. Kruger does a great job elevating her character beyond “angry, loner German.” Cruz gets the short stick as the fish out of water, but she’s still fun to have in the mix.

Mostly, “The 355” succeeds where others have come up short because it put the movie and the story first — not the message.

“The 355,” a Universal Pictures release in theaters Friday, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for “sequences of strong violence, brief strong language, and suggestive material.” Running time: 122 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.

MPAA Definition of PG-13: Parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ldbahr

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Action violence in fantastic, fierce female spy thriller.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Women are strong, and they're even stronger togeth

Main characters are working for their government w

Powerful, physically fierce, skilled women from di

Long, intense action sequences involving guns, kni

Kissing. Woman unbuttons her blouse as a sexual in

A few instances of words including "a--hole," "son

Drinking throughout. Wealthy drug kingpin makes re

Positive Messages

Women are strong, and they're even stronger together.

Positive Role Models

Main characters are working for their government with the intent of serving the greater good, putting their own lives at risk so that others can go about their lives without worry. These women are shown to be tough, brave, intelligent, savvy, perseverant, and skilled at combat, and they work well as a team.

Diverse Representations

Powerful, physically fierce, skilled women from different countries/backgrounds (played by actresses who are White, Black, Spanish, and Chinese) work together to tackle a problem. They do work that's most often credited to men in the movies while, for those who have them, male domestic partners tend to the home front. The women are in control of their image and aren't sexualized. Casting defies Hollywood ageism with regard to women as action stars.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Long, intense action sequences involving guns, knives, sticks, punches, kicks, etc. Large-scale shoot-outs with machine guns. A woman leaps across a platform right in front of a moving train. Emotionally tense hostage situation. Assassination. Explosions. Beatings. Lots of shootings, but nothing graphic or particularly bloody.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Kissing. Woman unbuttons her blouse as a sexual invitation, which leads to making out on a bed and the implication of sex.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

A few instances of words including "a--hole," "sons of bitches," "shite," and one use of "f--k you." Uses of "G-damn," "My God" and "Oh my God."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Drinking throughout. Wealthy drug kingpin makes references to his previous activity of selling cocaine.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The 355 is an action thriller centered on a formidable, diverse team of international female spies played by Jessica Chastain , Penelope Cruz , Lupita Nyong'o , Diane Kruger , and Bingbing Fan. They're physically skilled, shrewd, brave, and untiring in their pursuit to do what's necessary to save the world from extreme danger. While each is tough and capable as a solo agent, the clear message is that women are stronger together. Each reflects the culture of her country of origin to some degree, and many languages are spoken. Frequent action violence includes highly choreographed combat moves, gunfire, punches, kicks, explosions, and stabbings. These scenes aren't graphic and don't have a huge amount of emotional impact -- but a hostage situation is far tenser and may be too much for sensitive viewers. A long-term friendship gets romantic, with kissing on a bed and the implication of sex. There's drinking throughout and reference to selling cocaine. Strong language includes "a--hole" and one use of "f--k." To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Parents say (2)
Kids say (16)

Based on 2 parent reviews

Enjoyed the strong female characters

Pg 13 action movie with great female leads, what's the story.

In THE 355, a powerful weapon is in the hands of a mercenary, and government intelligence agencies from all over the world dispatch agents to obtain it. As the situation gets increasingly more dangerous, CIA spy Mace ( Jessica Chastain ) goes rogue, teaming up with three international agents ( Penelope Cruz , Lupita Nyong'o , and Diane Kruger ) to secure the item before it falls into the wrong hands.

Is It Any Good?

This twisty, suspenseful actioner is remarkably strong, kicking over stereotypes with its team of international secret agents who are powerful and smart and could go toe to toe with James Bond . And their gender here is no big deal -- they just happen to be women, as cinematic spies like Ethan Hunt and Jason Bourne just happen to be men. They're not "sexy spies" or "glamorous government assets"; they're individuals with independent strengths (technology, psychology, force, analysis) who come from different parts of the world and approach life differently. This is much more than Charlie's Angels : It's an invigorating thriller that doesn't undermine or exploit women's femininity. While the script never really gets into the rarity of an all-female spy team, the characters themselves begin to realize that their gender has made them loners in a man's world and that there's comfort in finding a community of people who've walked a similar path.

This isn't a pat, predictable journey; it has many twists and turns. But the story isn't without its holes, either. Graciela (Cruz) is a Colombian psychologist who's pulled into the retrieval despite not being trained to be in the field at any level -- something she keeps vocalizing, and asking whether she can return home. It seems like there's an obvious solution to let her be excused, and, as you might expect, civilian involvement does ultimately create a vulnerability that any of these trained operatives should have recognized. But films often ask us to overlook little common sense details so that we can enjoy a bigger story. Graciela is ultimately the fish out of water who reacts as the average viewer might, helping us appreciate the danger and gravity of the situation the team faces. As Graciela realizes that she possesses the grit and capability to take down international villains while making her own unique contribution to the team, the intent is clearly to be empowering. There's a strong message here for women: Alone, they may make headway when they fight "bad guys," but when they band together, they're unstoppable.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the representations in The 355. Why is it important for movies to be diverse ? How is The 355 an example of positive racial, gender, and age diversity compared to other espionage films?

Do you think violence is glamorized in The 355 ? Does the impact of the violence change depending on who's involved? For instance, do you react differently to the violence when you see a man punching a woman in the face?

How do the characters in The 355 demonstrate courage and teamwork ? Why are those all important character strengths ?

What message is the film aiming to deliver? Do you think it succeeds?

What is the meaning of the title?

Movie Details

In theaters : January 7, 2022
On DVD or streaming : February 22, 2022
Cast : Jessica Chastain , Penelope Cruz , Lupita Nyong'o
Director : Simon Kinberg
Inclusion Information : Female actors, Black actors, Latino actors
Studio : Universal Pictures
Genre : Action/Adventure
Character Strengths : Courage , Teamwork
Run time : 124 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : strong violence, brief strong language, and suggestive material
Last updated : November 14, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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The 355 Review

Producer and star Jessica Chastain and director Simon Kinberg team up here to give the world a charismatic, female-centric team of super-spies to balance all those male-led spy thrillers. You just wish the story had been as innovative as the casting, and the twists less screamingly obvious to even those without secret-agent training.

Chastain plays Mace, a CIA agent sent to retrieve the sort of crypto-doomsday device familiar from a thousand other spy capers. She and partner Nick ( Sebastian Stan ) are interrupted by the BND’s Marie ( Diane Kruger ) and the device is lost to bad actors, in the geopolitical rather than entertainment sense. Cue a globe-trotting quest, as Mace and Marie team up to stop a world war.

These spies are both fierce and fun: Mace is spiky and competent but not without her vulnerabilities, and Marie is — as she admits — a mess. Computer genius Khadijah ( Lupita Nyong'o ) is sensibly wary of returning to the field when asked to assist them, and the press-ganged Graciela ( Penélope Cruz ) is refreshingly terrified and just wants to go home to her kids.

It's all fun and games until, in its last moments, it succumbs to the increasingly common disease of sequelitis.

The film's best scenes involve these four holing up in a safe house to negotiate their boundaries and formulate a plan; it's weakest when they spout girl-power platitudes and when a deus ex China turns up to move the story forward six paces in a single bound in the final act. Not that Fan Bingbing 's Chinese agent Lin is ineffective; she just feels grafted suddenly on. And, just as women have been asking for decent roles in male-led films for decades, it would be nice to see some nuance for Stan and Edgar Ramírez here, and more surprises in their arcs.

Still, it's all fun and games until, in its last moments, this film succumbs to the increasingly common disease of sequelitis, with a coda so determined to launch a franchise that it fails to be fully satisfying now. These women are effective and fierce; leave it to audiences to decide whether we want them on another impossible mission.

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DVD & Streaming
Action/Adventure , Drama , Thriller

Content Caution

Four female spies talk to a handler in an office.

In Theaters

January 7, 2022
Jessica Chastain as Mason “Mace” Browne; Lupita Nyong’o as Khadijah; Diane Kruger as Marie Schmidt; Penélope Cruz as Graciela; Bingbing Fan as Lin Mi Sheng; Sebastian Stan as Nick Fowler; Edgar Ramírez as Luis Rojas

Home Release Date

February 22, 2022
Simon Kinberg

Distributor

Universal Pictures

Movie Review

What do you do when someone creates a hard drive capable of hacking into any computer system in the world? It can crash planes, take down entire power grids, block communication networks, you name it.

Well, sending in your top government agents to steal it seems like a reasonable expectation.

Unfortunately, it’s not just one government that wants to get its hands on the drive. It’s all of them.

The United States sends a CIA agent named Mace. She teams up with Khadijah of England’s MI6. Marie works for Germany’s secret intelligence. China is represented by Lin Mi Sheng. And psychologist Graciela was sent by Colombia (where the drive originated).

At first, there’s no love lost between this international team of female agents. But after realizing they all have the same goal—to keep the drive out of the hands of terrorists—they decide to work together.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend, after all.

Positive Elements

The women of the 355 (a name I’ll revisit in the Conclusion) feel alone for much of the film. They’ve all faced betrayal and loss. However, by working together, they gradually discover camaraderie and kinship. Because even though they “look different and speak different,” they all have the same goal.

It goes without saying—but I’ll say it anyway—that each of these women is willing to put her own life on the line to save others and to save the world .

And it doesn’t take an espionage expert to identify The 355 ’s not-so-subtle message about female empowerment (albeit of a very violent variety, as we’ll see). As viewers, we’re invited to see men’s chauvinism and sexism as repulsive, such as one scene where one man insults another for getting “beaten by a bunch of girls.”

Someone notes that when you “live a life of lies, it’s hard to know what’s true and what isn’t.”

Spiritual Elements

Several women wear hijabs. A Muslim man states that Allah will save him before a woman points out the fallacies in his beliefs, given his recent violent actions.

Sexual Content

A couple makes out before removing clothing and climbing into bed (where we see the woman’s undergarments). Later, we see them lying in bed together, covered only by sheets in an obviously post-coital moment. A few other couples kiss. Women wear revealing dresses at a swanky auction. We see several men wrapped in towels at a bathhouse.

A married woman is forced to flirt with a man to get information out of him, though it makes her very uncomfortable. (She is later rescued from the difficult moment when one of her female friends links arms with her and suggestively says “Sorry, she’s with me.”)

Violent Content

Pretty much everyone in this movie has a gun and is willing to use it (including Graciela, though she conscientiously objects). Blood flows as people are mercilessly gunned down. The good guys seem to have a higher body count than the bad ones. But they do try to disarm rather than kill when fighting other agents.

We also see quite a bit of hand-to-hand combat (sometimes paired with knives), which starts feeling dicey when a tiny woman is thrown into furniture by a man twice her size and strength. Several people are also tackled.

Innocent bystanders get shoved aside and knocked down during several chase sequences. A man threatens to shoot into a crowd (which would undoubtedly kill many civilians) to make his point.

Several people are forced to watch their loved ones (who have been taken hostage) get shot in the head. Similarly, at one point, the women choose to hand over the drive to the bad guys to spare one of their own from watching her husband and children be murdered.

One woman repeatedly threatens to kill or maim her fellow agents. She shoots a man in his femoral artery—which would cause him to bleed out if left untreated—to get information.

Several men are blown up. A woman bites a man’s lip. Someone suggests a certain herb can be used for suicide. A man is poisoned.

Baddies demonstrate the power of the stolen disc drive by causing planes to crash. News sources call these “terrorist attacks,” and someone notes that the drive could start another world war. A woman says she accidentally killed a cow when she hit it with her car.

Crude or Profane Language

We hear a single use of the f-word as well as five uses of the s-word (and its foreign equivalents). We also hear uses of “a–hole,” “b–ch,” “d–n,” “h—,” “p-ss” and the British expletive “bloody.” God’s name is abused (once paired with “d–n”). Someone makes a crude hand gesture.

Drug and Alcohol Content

People drink throughout. It appears that a few women drink to wash away their pains—both literally and metaphorically. One man states he doesn’t drink while working when offered the option to do so. Someone gives a man a cigar.

Other Negative Elements

Secret agents (as well as the bad guys) lie, double-cross, steal, break into places and even commit treason.

One woman notes that she should be in therapy (though she isn’t), considering she turned her own father in for selling state secrets to the KGB. Another is repeatedly bullied into using a gun and putting herself in danger despite not being properly trained.

We hear that a man hid a phone in his anus to sneak it into a prison.

The 355 (both the film and the onscreen agency) takes its name from Agent 355, the codename of a female spy during the American Revolution. But that’s where any real-world connection with this spy flick comes to a screeching halt.

What we have in its place is a typical action thriller. And there’s plenty of violence to go around. It’s paired with some harsh (though not frequent) language and a bit of sensuality as well.

But really, the message of The 355 is weak . It wants audiences to believe that this is a type of Ocean’s Eleven meets James Bond movie, but with women . And it is. But you could have substituted any or all of these women with a male replacements, and the film wouldn’t have changed.

Maybe that’s what The 355 ’s moviemakers were aiming for here: a film that implicitly argues women can do anything men can do. But for me, at least, the things that differentiate men from women are the things that should’ve stood out to make this a good female action flick. Instead, this female-focused espionage actioner violently suggests the two genders are completely interchangeable.

Emily Tsiao

Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.

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The 355 Is Proof That Women Can Make Middling Action Movies, Too

No actor working today is haunted by the Strong Female Character the way Jessica Chastain is haunted by the Strong Female Character. You know the type — an aloof, hyper-competent exterior hiding some instance of formative trauma, and no time for anything so frivolous as romance unless it leads to betrayal or tragedy. To be a woman working as an actor is to engage in an ongoing, exhausting quest for material that’s strongly written, or at least not rife with lingering stereotypes. Chastain’s not exempt from that struggle, but the more power she’s had over the parts she chooses, the more she’s gravitated towards ones that, in their attempt to counter sexist clichés, have created a whole set of new ones. The character she plays in the lady spy drama The 355 , a project she proposed and produced, is a steely CIA agent who’s introduced cheerfully beating up a colleague at the Langley gym when a new assignment arrives. Mace is a loner whose life revolves around her job and whose only confidant is her partner and best friend Nick (Sebastian Stan), who she falls into bed with right before the supposedly easy operation they’re on goes wrong and appears to leave him dead.

I’m making this sound more dire than it actually is. The 355 isn’t a total disaster — how can it be, when its cast includes Lupita Nyong’o as Khadijah, a tech-specialist who’s formerly of MI6, and Penélope Cruz as Graciela, a psychologist working for Colombia’s DNI? But its dullness somehow feels worse than grand failure, as though its aims were only to prove that a bunch of the most famous women on Earth can come together to make an action film just as uninspired and boring as men can. The 355 was directed by X-Men: Dark Phoenix ’s Simon Kinberg, who wrote the script with Smash creator Theresa Rebeck, and he’s genuinely terrible with fight sequences, which is a real issue in a movie that has a lot of them. Set pieces are chopped to barely legible bits in an effort to disguise stunt doubles, punches look blatantly pulled, it’s frequently unclear where characters are in relation to one another during chases, and somehow these globe-trotting badasses are all made to look awkward when carrying a gun.

Kinberg’s only other directing credit is for the aimless X-Men: Dark Phoenix , in which Chastain played the villain Vuk. His utter lack of any affinity for this kind of material speaks to the movie’s conflicted aims. Despite pulling together a Fox Force Five–esque ensemble of international stars — Diane Kruger and Fan Bingbing round out the international ensemble as German BND member Marie and MSS agent Lin Mi Sheng — The 355 isn’t a stylized exercise reveling in the fabulousness of its cast. Aside from some nifty suits on Nyong’o, there’s shockingly little of the sensory pleasure, much less the fun you’d get from a Bond movie. The film aims to be something closer to Bourne, with its chase sequences on stolen motorbikes and a whole middle sequence set in Morocco, but it has none of Paul Greengrass’s kinetic brilliance or, failing that, the choreography that’s made more recent films from David Leitch and Chad Stahelski so thrilling. The 355 is determinedly without thrills, though as its characters chase a tech MacGuffin that can crash planes and bring down computer systems, they do trudge through their respective bits of backstory as though it were a chore to get out of the way.

Mace contends with the loss of the only person in her life. Graciela frets about her husband and kids back home. Khadijah has a partner who actually knows about her former life in the field. Marie (Kruger) has issues surrounding the father she turned in herself as a traitor. And Lin Mi Sheng (Fan) is the kind of personality-free embodiment of Chinese power that occasionally gets popped into would-be blockbusters now despite feeling insulting to everyone involved. The script includes hoary phrasing as though it’s required: “We can do it the easy way, or we can do it the hard way,” Mace tells a suspect before she and the other women interrogate and torture him. “That’s the thing with partners — they get killed, or they kill you,” Marie intones during a lull in the non-action. None of this is as painful as the coda, when the film leans into the girlbossery that it previously mostly skirted, with Mace declaring to a foe that the identity of Agent 355, the female spy who worked for George Washington during the American Revolution, remains unknown because “someone knew her name, they just didn’t want the world to know it.” The 355 is, ultimately, a movie about how women are underappreciated in their roles of using violence to prop up their respective states, and its climax finds Mace triumphantly sending someone off to a black site after besting him by drinking her liquor straight. She’s not like the other girls, you see? Yaasss.

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Diane Kruger, Jessica Chastain and Lupita Nyong'o in The 355.

The 355 review – Jessica Chastain and her spy gang just don’t add up

The combined might of Chastain, Lupita Nyong’o, Diane Kruger and Penélope Cruz can’t enliven this lumbering action thriller

D iane Kruger slapping Jessica Chastain across the face with a frozen fish should be funny. The scene, sadly not played for laughs, is one of many wasted opportunities in this lacklustre action thriller. Chastain’s Mace and Kruger’s Marie, along with Khadijah (Lupita Nyong’o) and Graciela (Penélope Cruz), are international spies who team up to retrieve a “deadly cybertool” that’s fallen into the wrong hands.

Simon Kinberg’s film feels aggressively focus-grouped for the girl-boss crowd. “James Bond never had to deal with real life,” says mother-of-two Graciela with an eye roll. Winking dialogue about how women have been erased from history is similarly crowbarred in. Kruger smoulders as a German goth with daddy issues, and the only agent with any sort of swagger; Nyong’o, resplendent in a sweater vest, plays a tech specialist. Cruz is as luminous as ever, despite the fact that her role is mostly limited to crying and holding the phone. “We need another round… or like 10!” jokes Mace. Not even a post-mission pint in Morocco can liven up the gang’s tepid chemistry.

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The 355 review : Jessica Chastain’s spy thriller is an incomprehensible mess

The all-female action movie fails to be as empowering as its premise.

Past and present filmmakers have succeeded in pulling off silly spectacles that feel purposeful and — most importantly — entertaining. Simon Kinberg , who writes and directs The 355 , can’t be counted among them.

Starring an undeniably talented cast, which includes Diane Kruger, Lupita Nyong’o , Penelope Cruz, Fan Bingbing, Sebastian Stan , and led by Jessica Chastain and her production company Freckle Films, The 355 is an incomprehensible mess of a film. The action thriller suffocates in its smugness, believing without a shadow of a doubt that it is an empowering story of women persevering in a field dominated by men.

Even with its poor filmmaking and ill-paced two-hour runtime, The 355 could have found success had it dialed down the faux move for empowerment and instead focused on creating characters that are more than their one-line descriptors.

Putting a twist on the classic spy film by casting international female stars, The 355 follows CIA agent Mace, played by Chastain, as she is forced to team up with agents from across the globe to recover a top-secret weapon.

The simple premise is bogged down by lackluster action set pieces that rely on mindless gunfire and destruction for destruction's sake. The first fight sequence is indicative of how the rest of the choreography will go. Failing to possess an eye for how action should be shot, Kinberg, along with the film’s messy editing, renders clumsy and nauseating sequences that don’t show any impact of the fights themselves. Certain moves are cobbled together in an indiscernible fashion, while other random moments are dragged on to see the minutiae in slow motion.

Even the globe-trotting is reduced to so many interior shots that the lush and iconic settings, cities, and monuments seem flat. Part of the fun of these global espionage films is the opulent travel destinations and costume designs, and the film refuses to indulge or linger on either.

Sebastian Stan and Jessica Chastain in The 355 .

Despite donning a super-serious drama coat, The 355 tries to enjoy every type of espionage cliché to a fault. It plays quick and loose with tone, making hokey cutaways to characters procuring blades off their person or forced moments of casual banter and camaraderie between a cast that lacks chemistry.

Chastain is especially miscast here, and while she is without question a strong actress, she benefits from very specific roles. It’s not that she isn’t versatile (she is), but her stoicism comes across as inauthentic when playing cold and aloof characters.

The rest of the cast holds up better, though the movie ultimately gives Cruz and Bingbing little to do compared to the other actors. Thankfully the film has Nyong’o, who is as captivating as ever, imbuing a supporting character with a level of nuance and charisma that pulls the audience into her particular journey. It’s safe to say it might’ve been a better bet to follow her story rather than Chastain’s.

Penelope Cruz, Jessica Chastain, Diane Kruger, and Lupita Nyong’o in The 355 .

While there are plenty of aspects to pick apart, one element seriously undercuts the film’s acting talent, and that’s the incompetent script from Kinberg and Theresa Rebeck. Just look at the characters themselves, and not only will you see glaring archetypes but individuals whose stories the film haphazardly wraps up by the end.

It’s not wrong to have a group that contains the rogue assailant, the stoic loner, and the tech support, but it’s the actor’s performance that better serves those weathered outlines. Instead, T he 355’s dialogue drags the point out. By the time we’re reminded twice about how alone Mace is and how she has “nobody” (a perfect primer for team bonding), we’re at the point where it feels like unnecessary filler.

The 355 wants to be important while simultaneously aiming to be mindless fun. It never manages to accomplish either. Its star-studded cast does little to elevate the film’s weak and shallow script. While it’s not always fair to think about “ what should have been,” it’s tough not to wonder how the film could’ve turned out if it had an engaging director with a point of view beyond talking points.

The 355 is now playing in theaters.

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The 355 Reviews

40 Metascore
2 hr 4 mins
Suspense, Action & Adventure
Watchlist Where to Watch

CIA agent Mason "Mace" Brown joins forces with a rival German agent, a cutting-edge computer specialist and a Colombian psychologist when a top-secret weapon falls into the hands of a group of mercenaries. Together, the four women embark on a breakneck mission to save the world while staying one step ahead of a mysterious figure who's tracking their every move.

Reviewed By: Rovi

With an all-star cast, one would think that The 355, written and directed by Simon Kinberg, would be a phenomenal flick. Unfortunately, the film relies on too many double crosses and twists that don't pay off. It is a fairly cookie cutter espionage action flick that tries to think its more than it is, due to its cast. Jessica Chastain plays Mason "Mace" Browne, a CIA agent who is sent to Paris with fellow agent Nick Fowler (Sebastian Stan) to exchange $3 million for a hard drive that can manipulate all sorts of technology, from cellphones to airplanes. This exchange is thwarted by Marie Schmidt (Diane Kruger), when she tries to steal the hard drive for the German BND. Mace is then sent to England to recruit former MI-6 agent Khadijah (Lupita Nyong'o) to help track down the drive. Along the way, Mace recruits Schmidt because they are working for the same cause, to track down and destroy the hard drive, and they also include Graciela (Penelope Cruz) after they find out her fingerprint is the only thing that can access the tracker after the original holder of the hard drive has been killed. And before everything is all said and done, Lin Mi Sheng (Fan Bingbing) becomes a part of the team to take down the terrorist group who is also after the drive for world destruction. This film seems to fall into a troupe of ending in a way in which they want to leave it open so that there could be a sequel and maybe be a new action franchise. So, instead of standing up on its own, it is already looking to a future film that is not certain. For a film that wants to set itself up in this way, one would think that it would bring something new to the table and it doesn't do that in the slightest. Unlike recent action franchises that have unique sets of rules, eccentric characters, and new ways to shoot action sequences, this relies on quick cuts to convey action, each character having a base level of characterization, and a story that revolves around international espionage. What could have sent this movie over the edge is having an antagonist with an actual motive. The chief villain in this film is just a run of the mill terrorist leader with a total of four scenes, and for the most part he is rather unassuming. The flaws seem to have to fall on Kinberg. Coming off the dud Dark Phoenix, one would have hoped Kinberg would come back with a bang, but this is just as bland. The 355 does have a bright spot, and that is the cast. The fact that viewers got a film with the ensemble cast of Jessica Chastain, Lupita Nyong'o, Penelope Cruz, Diane Kruger, Fan Bingbing, and Sebastian Stan is incredible. Even though they are not given too much to work with, they make the most of it. They all worked so well together in the final third act action sequence, and that is easily the best part of the movie. The 355 is a lackluster film with an incredible cast. There is nothing from this movie that makes it stand apart from any of its action film counterparts, and the fact that they leave the end relatively open shows one of the issues with action movies today - an inability to stand on its own.

Review: Espionage team-up of ‘The 355’ fails to come together

Four women in evening dress walk together in the movie "The 355."

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As explained in “The 355,” a female spy known to history only by her code name 355 played a pivotal role in gathering intelligence against the British during the American Revolution. The film follows an international group of contemporary female intelligence agents who unite to track down a dangerous piece of technology before it falls into the wrong hands. Directed by Simon Kinberg from a script he co-wrote with Theresa Rebeck, the movie is low-energy entertainment that feels like a letdown given the talent involved.

Jessica Chastain , also a producer on the project, plays a hard-boiled CIA agent, while Diane Kruger plays her equally tough German counterpart. Lupita Nyong’o is a former British agent reluctantly brought back in, while Penélope Cruz plays a Colombian psychologist who has never worked in the field before. Chinese star Bingbing Fan is an operative of uncertain loyalties. As the five come together for a shared goal of saving the world — “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” as someone says — they find themselves on the run from various government agencies while in pursuit of violent arms dealers.

The storytelling and plotting feel pulled together from spare parts of recent “Mission: Impossible” and James Bond films, with a disavowal here and some light parkour there and multiple destabilizing double-crosses. The high-gloss sheen and glamour of those movies, with their spectacular international locales and operatic action, prove harder to replicate here. The action sequences feel a bit perfunctory and don’t provide the necessary punctuation to the rest of the story.

Four women direct their attention at a man sitting at a desk in a scene from the movie "The 355."

The film’s most notable addition is its attempt to acknowledge that these women have, need to have, lives outside their jobs, even with an occupation like international intelligence. Chastain’s character, reprising emotional beats from the performer’s role as a CIA analyst in “Zero Dark Thirty,” has long had only her work, and the story emphasizes her isolation. In a moment that becomes the picture’s thematic centerpiece, Chastain says, “James Bond never has to deal with real life” to which Nyong’o responds, “James Bond always ends up alone.”

Cruz finds the most to latch onto, bringing an authenticity to her stress while constantly checking in with her family back home and adding a light screwball dusting when her character must awkwardly flirt to gain information. Kruger comes across as the most at ease with the picture’s action, while Nyong’o seems to be having the most fun, bringing a much-needed energetic brio to the story.

The signified cool walk-off music that leads into the end credits (and leaves the door open for a sequel) is Peaches’ song “Boys Wanna Be Her,” also the theme music to the TV show “Full Frontal With Samantha Bee.” And that’s indicative of the larger problem with the movie, that everywhere it should feel risky and energizing, it instead feels familiar and a bit tired. Simply having women star in a sluggish iteration of an airport dad-novel espionage-action story is not inspiring on its own. Despite a few scattered moments, the team-up action of “The 355” never fully comes together.

Rated: PG-13, for sequences of strong violence, brief strong language, and suggestive material Running time: 2 hours, 4 minutes Playing: Starts Jan. 7 in general release

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The 355 Review: An Unimaginative Thriller With Mediocre Action

By Jonathan Sim

The 2022 movie slate is kicked off with The 355 , an action spy thriller that follows CIA agent Mace Brown (Jessica Chastain) as she teams up with other international agents. They have to retrieve a drive that can wreak havoc with the press of a few buttons before it gets into the wrong hands. While the male-dominated spy genre has delivered with the Mission: Impossible and James Bond series, the prospect of an original all-female spy film was alluring. Unfortunately, the movie fails to deliver on the concept’s promise, fumbling its execution on nearly every level.

It feels as if this movie began with people coming up with an excellent idea of assembling a diverse group of female agents to work together and kick ass. Unfortunately, when it came time for these people to come up with another interesting idea, they gave up, and the result was a generic, forgettable action movie with nothing new to offer beyond that one novel idea. The film is co-written and directed by Simon Kinberg, who recently wrote and directed the critically panned Dark Phoenix . While Kinberg has written a few hits in the past, this was another failed directorial attempt as he has made a movie lacking in any personality.

The 355 tells a remarkably conventional story for a spy thriller, and it does so without an ounce of charm. The premise surrounding good guys and bad guys chasing after a MacGuffin has never been less interesting because while the stakes are high, the movie does a terrible job of putting the characters in danger. Much of the film doesn’t have a villain; instead, the movie has a few goons chasing after the drive, and they don’t have much of a presence. Although we know what the villains will be capable of if they have the drive, we don’t understand their motivations or precisely what they will do if they succeed. It’s a frustratingly predictable film, setting up a storyline in the opening act where Kinberg expects to surprise you later on with a plot twist. However, it’s the most obvious revelation that anyone who has watched a spy movie will see coming from miles away.

The 355 Review: An Unimaginative Thriller with Mediocre Action

Unfortunately, the screenplay lacks anything inventive to the point where if it weren’t for the prowess and bankability of our leading ladies, the movie would have easily gone direct-to-video. But the movie squanders the talent of the main actresses. None of them have any chemistry with each other, all of them feeling as if a committee assembled them to stand on screen together and shoot guns. Penélope Cruz comes the closest to having a personality as Graciela, a psychologist out of her depth in the world of international espionage who wants to return to her husband and sons. She spends most of the movie whimpering about her situation and comes the closest to having an arc. Unfortunately, every other character has interchangeable personalities, all sounding the same.

The movie’s characterization attempts come in a brief moment where we feel a history between Mace and her colleague, Nick (Sebastian Stan). But their emotional moments are rushed, and all we get beyond that is a scene where our heroes sit at a table and verbally state their backstories. There is little room for an emotional connection to any of these characters as the dialogue in this film is either heavily clichéd or riddled with exposition. None of them are likable enough to become a fan favorite, all serving as one-dimensional spies that you don’t get invested in.

But is this the entertaining action thriller that it could have been? Unfortunately not. The action sequences are remarkably unremarkable, with Kinberg’s forgettable camera choices and basic handheld coverage. The 355 contains several shootouts, and none of them stand out above the rest, not even the finale. The film’s conviction to take itself seriously with nothing to offer is its ultimate downfall. It feels like the movie was made for the sake of having an all-female spy movie rather than to tell a good story with compelling characters. This movie could have been a show-stopping globetrotting spy film but is instead an unimaginative thriller that wastes its star talents on a bland script, mediocre action, and underbaked themes.

SCORE : 4/10

As ComingSoon’s review policy explains, a score of 4 equates to “Poor.” The negatives overweigh the positive aspects making it a struggle to get through.

Disclosure: The critic watched a screener for ComingSoon’s The 355 review.

Jonathan Sim is a film critic and filmmaker born and raised in New York City. He has met/interviewed some of the leading figures in Hollywood, including Christopher Nolan, Zendaya, Liam Neeson, and Denis Villeneueve. He also works as a screenwriter, director, and producer on independent short films.

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COMMENTS

The 355 movie review & film summary (2022)
The 355. "The 355" amasses some of the most talented and electrifying actresses in the world, then squanders them in a generic and forgettable action picture. Jessica Chastain is among them, and she helped shepherd the film from the beginning as one of its producers. It's easy to see what the appeal is here: A glamorous and globe-trotting ...
The 355
The 355. PG-13 Released Jan 7, 2022 2h 2m Action Mystery & Thriller. TRAILER for The 355: Trailer 2. List. 24% Tomatometer 229 Reviews. 86% Audience Score 1,000+ Verified Ratings. When a top ...
The 355
Full Review | Original Score: 3/10 | Mar 25, 2022. Liz Shannon Miller Consequence. TOP CRITIC. What The 355 offers up is a perfect Saturday afternoon dad movie, but instead of starring Stallone or ...
'The 355' Review
Rated PG-13, 2 hours 3 minutes. He co-wrote The 355 with playwright Theresa Rebeck, who has a long history with TV cop procedurals, from NYPD Blue to Law & Order: Criminal Intent. But its thinly ...
The 355 review: A sleek, silly, and surprisingly fun female spy thriller
Maybe January will bury The 355, but frankly it feels like the kind of movie bleak mid-winter was made for: Starry, silly escapism with pop-feminist flare and a passport. Jessica Chastain, Lupita ...
'The 355' Review: Jessica Chastain in a Vigorous Formula Spy Flick
Camera: Tim Maurice-Jones. Editors: John Gilbert, Lee Smith. Music: Tom Holkenborg. With: Jessica Chastain, Sebastian Stan, Penélope Cruz, Lupita Nyong'o, Diane Kruger, Bingbing Fan, Jason ...
The 355 (2022)
The 355: Directed by Simon Kinberg. With Jessica Chastain, Penélope Cruz, Bingbing Fan, Diane Kruger. When a top-secret weapon falls into mercenary hands, a wild-card C.I.A. agent joins forces with three international agents on a mission to retrieve it, while staying a step ahead of a mysterious woman who's tracking their every move.
The 355 Review
The 355 Review. The 355 premieres in theaters on Friday, Jan. 7. Born of an idea star Jessica Chastain had while working with director Simon Kinberg on X-Men: Dark Phoenix about an all-female ...
'The 355' review: Jessica Chastain and Lupita N'yongo headline a
Showcasing a thrown-together international team of female spies, "The 355" mostly feels like the pilot for a TV series, just with an inordinately good cast. Any movie in this genre that name ...
'The 355' review: Jessica Chastain and company lead this solid if by
As in most every spy movie for the past 50 years, there's talk of impending World War III, but no one is coming to this for original stakes. And "The 355" hits all the expected beats ably.
'The 355' Review: Exile in Bondville
At least Cruz is allowed to get a laugh in a scene where her married soccer mom learns to flirt with a patsy. The twinkle in her eyes looks just like Sean Connery's seductive gleam. The 355 ...
Review: A solid if by-the-numbers spy thriller in 'The 355'
Mostly, "The 355" succeeds where others have come up short because it put the movie and the story first — not the message. "The 355," a Universal Pictures release in theaters Friday, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for "sequences of strong violence, brief strong language, and suggestive material."
The 355 Movie Review
Kissing. Woman unbuttons her blouse as a sexual in. Drinking throughout. Wealthy drug kingpin makes re. Parents need to know that The 355 is an action thriller centered on a formidable, diverse team of international female spies played by Jessica Chastain, Penelope Cruz, Lupita Nyong'o, Diane Kruger, and Bingbing Fan.
The 355 Review
The 355. Producer and star Jessica Chastain and director Simon Kinberg team up here to give the world a charismatic, female-centric team of super-spies to balance all those male-led spy thrillers ...
The 355
Movie Review. What do you do when someone creates a hard drive capable of hacking into any computer system in the world? It can crash planes, take down entire power grids, block communication networks, you name it. ... The 355 (both the film and the onscreen agency) takes its name from Agent 355, the codename of a female spy during the American ...
'The 355' film review: Chastain leads the all-star, sleek & fun spy
An A-list cast of today's best working actresses team up to kick all sorts of ass in the spy thriller 'The 355' (in theaters Jan. 7). In short: International agents from across the world (Jessica Chastain, Penélope Cruz, Fan Bingbing, Diane Kruger and Lupita Nyong'o) race to get their hands on a dangerous decryption key before it falls into the wrong hands. Édgar Ramírez and Sebastian Stan ...
Movie Review: Jessica Chastain's 'The 355'
The 355 was directed by X-Men: Dark Phoenix 's Simon Kinberg, who wrote the script with Smash creator Theresa Rebeck, and he's genuinely terrible with fight sequences, which is a real issue in ...
The 355 review
The 355 review - Jessica Chastain and her spy gang just don't add up. The combined might of Chastain, Lupita Nyong'o, Diane Kruger and Penélope Cruz can't enliven this lumbering action ...
'The 355' review: Jessica Chastain's spy thriller is an ...
The 355, an all-female action movie starring Jessica Chastain, Lupita Nyong'o, Penelope Cruz and more, fails to be as exciting and empowering as its premise. Menu The Inverse Review
The 355
The 355 does have a bright spot, and that is the cast. The fact that viewers got a film with the ensemble cast of Jessica Chastain, Lupita Nyong'o, Penelope Cruz, Diane Kruger, Fan Bingbing, and ...
The 355
The 355 is a 2022 American action spy thriller film directed by Simon Kinberg from a screenplay by Theresa Rebeck and Kinberg, and a story by Rebeck. The film features an ensemble cast, starring Jessica Chastain, Penélope Cruz, Bingbing Fan, Diane Kruger, and Lupita Nyong'o as a group of international spies who must work together to stop a terrorist organization from starting World War III.
'The 355' review: Jessica Chastain in low-yield spy thriller
Review: Espionage team-up of 'The 355' fails to come together. Penélope Cruz, left, Jessica Chastain, Lupita Nyong'o and Diane Kruger in "The 355," co-written and directed by Simon ...
The 355 Review: An Unimaginative Thriller With Mediocre Action
The 2022 movie slate is kicked off with The 355, an action spy thriller that follows CIA agent Mace Brown (Jessica Chastain) as she teams up with other international agents.They have to retrieve a ...

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Reviewed online, Jan. 5, 2022. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 122 MIN.

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