It’s a crowd-pleasing team up in The 355, the latest from co-writer/director Simon Kinberg.
When a potentially world-devastating weapon falls into the wrong hands, the best agents from around the world are gathered to save the planet. Of course, all the best are women, and each has their own specialty that makes them the supergroup of butt-kicking espionage.
This is pretty blatant hoorah feminism, the kind of stock and standard take that women can save the world, too, and you better cheer for it. It’s not the most auspicious follow-up to Kinberg’s massive misfire X-Men: Dark Phoenix, which saw him attempt to root the Dark Phoenix saga in layers of misogyny and repression that never took hold. He’ll try to do much the same here, taking the good ol’ boy spy thriller genre and reconfiguring it into a feminism romp.
The good holdover from Kinberg’s previous film is Jessica Chastain, who goes from baddie leader in Dark Phoenix to the unifying hero here. To be frank, the cast is the main reason to give The 355 a chance, with the rest of the team being made up of beloved and accomplished actresses. Penélope Cruz, Diane Kruger, Lupita Nyong’o, and Bingbing Fan fill out the world-saving team while Sebastian Stan hangs around the outskirts.
An early January release date is another inauspicious sign for this movie, but let’s cross our fingers that the excellent cast isn’t wasted.
The 355 is directed by Simon Kinberg and stars Jessica Chastain, Penélope Cruz, Diane Kruger, Lupita Nyong’o, and Bingbing Fan. It will be released in the US and the UK on January 7th, 2022. For international release dates, click here.
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