I’m guessing Universal Pictures could tell THE 355 wasn’t very good, which could explain why it’s getting released the first week of January in the new year. Directed by Simon Kinberg (X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX), a man known more for being a producer and writer than a seasoned storyteller behind the camera, the film follows a group of highly-skilled women forced to work together to save the world. Sadly, the production is mostly loud and messy, and woefully devoid of any fun.

A powerful weapon capable of toppling countries with a keystroke, housed in the form of a portable hard drive, is stolen from the crime lords who created it, and the more ruthless crime lord who wants to steal it. Now the CIA has tasked agent Mason “Mace” Brown (Jessica Chastain) and her work partner Nick Fowler (Sebastian Stan) to go undercover as a married couple on honeymoon in Bogota, where they’ll hopefully meet with the mercenary who has the drive (played by Edgar Ramirez in a glorified cameo). Little do they know a rival German agent named Marie (Diane Kruger) is also after it, and a Colombian psychologist named Graciela (Penélope Cruz) is caught in the middle. Mace also enlists the help of her old MI6 buddy and computer specialist Khadijah (Lupita Nyong’o). The retrieval of the drive goes horribly wrong, and soon these women find themselves forced to work together to get it back, taking them on a mission in exotic locales and finding themselves in many dangerous situations. Along the way, they meet another woman named Lin Mi Sheng (Bingbing Fan), who appears to be one step ahead of them.

THE 355 feels like it’s trying hard to be something special, but the end result is chaotic and at times just tedious. With strong actresses like those involved, you would expect them to compensate for the script’s shortcomings, but the choppy editing and sometimes predictable action sequences leave a lot to be desired. Among the many problems here are terrible subtitles that are at times nearly impossible to read, white letters over white clothing with no drop shadow behind them… I actually kind of gave up at one point, as it felt a little insulting to the audience – don’t give us a lot to read if we’re going to have to work that hard to read it. And there’s no way to say this without sounding a little insulting and possibly racist (I assure you, I’m not), but it’s the truth when I say Bingbing Fan’s accent while speaking English is so hard to listen to later in the film, it’s really difficult to make out what she’s trying to say. It actually sounds like someone trying to speak with a retainer in their mouth for the first time, very distracting.

Then there’s the lack of chemistry between the leading ladies, even when you can tell they’re trying to find scenes together that pop or come off as clever. I love Jessica Chastain and we’ve seen time and time again how good she can be when given the right material. She seems lost here, never quite finding the right beats with Mace no matter how competent she seems while handling the many hand-to-hand combat scenes. Diane Kruger is a slightly more interesting character, as she’s playing a spy following in the footsteps of her father, who turned out to be a traitor, so she’s very determined to succeed and prove her devotion to the job… thing is, she just seems angry all the time, making it hard to feel sympathetic for her. Fairing a little better is Penélope Cruz as the family woman who is forced to assist the other ladies when all she wants is to go home, and Lupita Nyong’o playing a woman trying very hard to leave the spy life behind for a budding relationship and chance at normalcy. The ideas behind the characters aren’t completely bad, they’re just not executed as well as they could have been, and the ladies are pushed together so suddenly that we rarely get a chance to feel anything for them on a personal level.

There’s also some “twists” that happen in the film that most spy movie lovers will see coming a mile away. Jason Flemyng plays the main baddie here, and while I normally love seeing the actor do his thing, he’s used so sparingly and given little to do in the few scenes he has other than look intimidating. This is a grand assembly of hot Hollywood talent in a lackluster action film that feels like you’ve seen it many times before. Even the action scenes feel lifted from other better movies, like the recent Daniel Craig 007 films, or perhaps the BOURNE movies. The actresses even make jokes about the things James Bond does during his adventures, like that’s a playbook to follow while they all risking their lives. There is one particularly bold moment late in the story that gave me hope this might end in a surprisingly daring way, but it’s followed by a by-the-numbers finale that fails to wow even the most ardent action lovers.

THE 355 certainly had potential to be something interesting, but instead comes across as forgettable action fare that sports a strong cast given weak material. Another major problem is the PG-13 rating confinement meaning very little blood and sometimes cartoonish kills… this is a film that really should have been rated R to take things to the next level. A few times I was wondering if the editors were just really bad at their job, and then I realized they were having to quick-cut around the violence to maintain the “safer” rating. All that and the two hour and 4-minute run time just makes things feel sloppy while bloated. Simon Kinberg can clearly handle producing and writing films, but maybe needs to leave directing to others who are better suited for it.

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