The Union. The Syndicate. Citadel. These are just three names for spy agencies used in three franchises that report on the current scenario of the spy universe: good-natured mercenaries, well-trained to kill, and living a lavish life of luxury and sophistication to find diskettes that contain the agents’ identities. There are auctions disputed by evil nations that our heroes need to participate in to identify buyers. A traitor always decides that since the market is no longer about patriotism, “doing world good” includes getting rich. Something like that. And of course, there are three other scenarios: 1) the woman leads; 2) the spy duo is perfect together, but has personal problems to overcome and/or 3) one of the agents, preferably the woman, chooses an ordinary citizen to train him and transform him in less than 48 hours into one of the best agents in the field. Of course, they win.

Now, am I talking about The Union, Mission: Impossible, or Citadel? Netflix, Paramount Plus, or Amazon Prime Video? On MAX, Kayley Cuoco lives in the same scenario as The Flight Attendant and, especially, Role Play. On Apple TV Plus and Disney Plus, I’ve already forgotten what they have on it, but they also do. But do you understand what I mean?

For those who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, there was the Cold War and with it, 007 represented the British Government and the West. Today, he is a civil servant supporting the independent agents who have joined forces to protect the world from corrupt leaders. Who pays the bill? It’s uncertain, but they travel the world in private jets, live in luxurious areas and apartments in Europe, and dress like models. What matters is having a franchise.

In the case of The Union, there is the attraction of uniting a missing Halle Berry and an always charismatic Mark Wahlberg, in an irrelevant plot that takes them to England (destroying London) and Croatia, without forgetting the trip to New Jersey. They are ex-high school sweethearts who rescue the bond/chemistry between them to save the world by recovering the stolen floppy disk with the identities of all the agents spread across the globe.

Interestingly, Roxanne (Halle Berry), the spy leader of an elite government organization, chooses to recruit her ex-high school sweetheart, Mike McKenna (Mark Wahlberg), who has never exactly left where they met, lives with his mother and is a construction worker, to help her with a mission in which she had already failed before. Why just Mike might be the best for the job because the League is a secret agency that uses “ordinary people who have more street smarts than book smarts” to form its team of super spies. In other words: street smarts outperform trained and educated agents. They can also be more vulnerable to corruption, as we will see with the antagonist side.

Yes, you are watching a movie where James Bond is a blue-collar worker, as star Mark Wahlberg acknowledged in an interview with Tudum. “Everybody loves Bond. We realized that maybe we wouldn’t get the chance to be James Bond, so how about we make our own version of a blue-collar James Bond?”, he warns.

This is the obvious part of a “no-league” or soulful movie: we already know the plot, and we already anticipate the ending. The fights are not amazing, there is no drama or even incredible stunts. It is just an average movie, without even the potential to keep us waiting for the sequel, which will be. The caveat, and it needs to be made, is that the couple’s relationship is more complex and plausible, and addresses deeper aspects of why they didn’t get together before and why they still like each other. No grand gestures or drama, but realistic and mature adults who deal with the problem. That was very interesting.

Halle Berry‘s return to an action film, after her wonderful Jinx in the Bond franchise (which was always considered for a spin-off but never got off the ground), gives us some hope, but it doesn’t take off due to the lack of creativity in the script. She and Mark have been friends for over 30 years (proven by photos in the credits) and they hadn’t worked together before. It’s a shame they chose such a half-baked project to fix that.

For someone who was working on the film for four years, as is the case for Mark Wahlberg, it’s even more regrettable that he didn’t try to avoid so many clichés. The pace is good, and even the flirting is cool, but there are no objectives or twists that make us engage. The brilliance of Tom Cruise in having been enchanting us with Ethan Hunt for 28 years (in 2024) in seven films (eight if we consider that he divided the 7 in 2) is in keeping a “simple” story paradoxically complex. The MI department is part of the American government and fights the mercenary syndicate that destabilizes the world economy. Something that is “believable”. Any argument for political independence ethical or national only applies to the Avengers because they are superheroes, but even they cannot be neutral. Hollywood clearly disagrees. And now we have our new franchise…

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