Yes No Maybe So: Jessica Chastain and the "355"
Monday, October 12, 2020 at 2:46PM by new contributor Josh Bierman
The 355 is a new action film starring a host of bad ass international superstars set for a January 2021 release. If we’re being honest, when I first saw Sponcon for this on my Instagram, I was 100% certain that this was a short film for Lancôme or Chanel starring their brand ambassadors. Turns out it’s a real life feature length film! Huzzah for female-fronted action movies. Let’s take a deep dive into the trailer...
YES
• Obviously we’ve got to start with our leading ladies. We’ve got Lupita Nyong’o, Jessica Chastain, Penelope Cruz, Diane Kruger, and Fan Bingbing. What a group! It’s been a while since we’ve seen some of them and they look like they’re in their element.
• All of these ladies have done action movies, but they are generally the only woman and playing the love interest. It’s nice to see them star alongside other women and that the filmmakers don’t feel the need to add a love story in order to have more men. (Then again this is just the first trailer, so that may still be in store for us.)
• Is Penélope Cruz now contractually obligated to have Edgar Ramírez in every project she works on? Fine by me! They work really well off together. We also have some prime Cruz line readings in this trailer, particularly, “I am a normal person.” God, I’ve missed her!
NO
• Jessica Chastain’s character is called...Mace? Maybe a missed opportunity to have other fun character names like Taser, Brass Knuckles, and Detonator.
• Is there much of a plot? Are they battling coders? Then again, this is never a question that a male-fronted fronted action movie would have to answer. But the material should be worthy of the talent and time of these amazing women.
• The movie was written by its director Simon Kinberg along with the playwright and television writer Theresa Rebeck, both of whom have a history of being involved with projects that are panned by critics and ridiculed by audiences. Kinberg’s last directing venture was 2019’s superhero bomb, X Men: Dark Phoenix and Rebeck is known for creating the NBC musical drama, Smash…
MAYBE SO
• ...which continues to find life on Twitter as a meme, bringing together gays the world over years after its cancellation. If The 355 is terrible, maybe it’ll at least be entertaining and give us moments that will live on in infamy as Smash has continued to do.
• There are so few new releases to give us any excitement these days. Good or bad, maybe we’ll all be happy to simply see a new movie where bad guys are having their asses handed to them by some kick ass ladies? This is assuming they don’t announce in December that they’re pushing the film to a summer in hopes of a ~theatrical~ release. Just give it to us VOD, we’re starved for the new !
Following the failure of Dark Phoenix, Kinberg said: “I’m here, I’m saying when a movie doesn’t work, put it on me. I’m the writer-director, the movie didn’t connect with audiences, that’s on me.” Do we think Kinberg will have reason to repeat these words for 355? Comment below!
Reader Comments (25)
Jessica Chastain is immediately a No and she did just this type of thing in the terrible Ava which she was miscast inbut Cruz is always a Yes.
I prefer to think of Rebeck as a successful playwright and TV writer (NYPD Blue), although it's hard to overlook the fact that she wrote the Catwoman screenplay...
Working Stiff: So many people touched the Catwoman screenplay, credited AND uncredited, that blaming any specific person for the cobbled together loaf put on screen is a fool's errand.
I adore Chastain in most things, but something about her just doesn't gel as an action heroine to me. She looked uncomfortable in the "The Huntsman" (yikes, what a bomb) and "Ava" looks like it has the production value and gravitas of a CW show. Hopefully I'm wrong and we have a new action star in our midst...pulling for the mantle to be taken by Lupita though.
To be fair with "X-Men: Dark Phoenix"... it wasn't THAT terrible, and a lot of the damage that it received during production and post-production (as it happened with "The New Mutants", another better film than reviewed, given the circumstances), because of the Disney-Fox merger and how the aliens of the mutant film were going to be the same ones that were going to be used in MCU's Captain Marvel, the Skrulls, so they had to redesign a lot of the film, on the fly.
So let's see what Kingberg does WITHOUT that kind of huge studio executives interference. I don't expect this one to be any good, but at least can be fun, these ladies, all rock.
This looks very generic and Penelope Cruz is playing a Colombian ?!
LOL, this looks horrible.
I agree with Jesus Alonso - it looks fun, and we could all use some fun, especially with these ladies aboard.
okay so i will be there with bells on considering the cast but WHY WHY WHY are they denying me Fan Bingbing... it looks like a mere cameo judging on this trailer?
The trailer is GENERIC as hell, but these actresses + spy shit + Sebastian Stan = I will see this movie twice. Maybe three times.
THAT. CAST.
I'm a Yes knowing 100% I'll be disappointed.
I don't know, it looks like fun but Jessica Chastain's character is called Mace? Oh shit... WWE has a character now called Mace in a lame renegade faction known as Retribution. That's the kind of bullshit that made me stop watching WWE 6 years ago.
Hollywood arrogance. Every studio should be required to add a question mark to “In Theaters” and to the release date.
In Theaters?
January 15?
Truth in advertising.
And thank you poster for having each name above the correct actress (a small thing that nevertheless irritates me no end when it doesn't happen).
I will watch for the women and because Edgar Ramírez is hot AF.
I'd have been a hell yes btw if Cotillard had remained in the cast.
I'm a hell yes...if this gets released to streaming. We won't be close to ready to go back to theaters by January.
Looks derivative but give me Cruz, Chastain, Nyong’o and Kruger anyday of the week playing badass spies, I am in ! After her Oscar-worthy turns in "Zero Dark Thirty", "Miss Sloane" and "Molly's Game" Chastain can do it in her sleep; and Penelope looks like she's in her "stealing all the scenes" mode.
Lupita is given something different... Penelope is reminding me how much I miss her in the best roles. This looks like it'll be uneven, and I do wish Marion Cotillard was still in it, but still the cast is great enough to warrant maybe checking it out.
love the cast and obviously i will watch. but, péné playing a colombian... really?
Now a Chastain movie almost guarantees to be bad.
but I AM STILL WATCHING THIS!
Why first credit to Kruger? Compensation for being a replacement?
CRUZ AND LUPITA THO!
Philip H. if you love Penélope, make sure you see "Everybody Knows", she was snubbed from another Oscar nom.
I'm all for this movie for the obvious reasons that make me a reader of this site. BUT... the clips from that runway/high fashion scene?? Ugh. It rings of "Ocean's Eight." Do all these women-driven ensembles have to center around a scene in which the camera is hidden in the jewelry?
Lupita makes me hopeful. She doesn't many movies under her belt because she is extremely choosy with her scripts. I can't imagine her having to do schlock at this point.
Chastain only makes bad movies. Same goes for Penélope without Pedro.