Gal Gadot has a unique market. She is a beautiful, charismatic actress who excels in action movies. Were it not for the successful forays of Charlize Theron and before them Michele Yeoh, she would have navigated a predominantly male market almost single-handedly. Within superheroes, there are female versions, but generally not. And Gal is in The Fast and the Furious as well as Red Alert (where to be fair, she is in a supporting role). Not worth mentioning Wonder Woman. With Heart of Stone, she fulfills my dream of Mission Impossible – Women, which with the death of Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson) was postponed.

Like Rachel Stone, Gal Gadot brings a modernized look to action and spy movies. She is part of an independent agency (like Citatel?) that is naturally secretive and powerful, led by former agents of the world’s greatest powers and acting together blindly following the coordinates of an omnipotent artificial intelligence, ironically called the Heart. This reverses the maxims: technologically, following the heart is dealing with algorithms determining the destiny of nations and people, and, using the rational, it is, paradoxically, emotional. The good thing is that the joke is in the air, but they don’t rub it in our faces.

Rachel is operating undercover among “normal” spies, but a hit leaves her with the choice of following the Heart or her heart. By choosing friends, she triggers a series of attacks and crimes that only she can stop.

The cast brings names like Jamie Dornan and, especially to my delight because I’m a HUGE FAN, Sophie Okonedo and she always brings gravitas to any role. Directed by Tom Harper, of Peaky Blinders, there is nothing unforgettable about the plot: a well-choreographed sequence of fights, a trip around the globe (Iceland and Portugal, among others), and a series of betrayals and secrets that leave us guessing who is who. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all, I’m sorry, but that doesn’t take away from your fun.

Young Alia Bhatt plays the millennial who confuses and challenges Rachel Stone, with no major surprises in the narrative. Glenn Close and BD Wong‘s cameos are cool, but it’s Sophie who keeps the credibility of the experts.

Agent Stone’s problem lies in the predictability of technology’s twists and turns. At the same time that we are dependent and need it, it leaves us vulnerable. Without offering alternatives. That’s why I quote the equally weak Citatel as the film’s soul sister. While it’s cool and necessary to bring women to the center of action movies, we’d have to better tailor the challenges and even more, the alternatives to the current dangers. If not, it’s just more of the same and Gal Gadot deserves better than that!

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