In practice, the concept of Jessica Chastain: Action Hero is something we’d easily love to follow, but the three-time Oscar nominee really needs to pick better projects with which to showcase her undeniable credentials.
by Simon Kinberg The 355 fell as the first big box office bomb of that year and found itself widely panned by critics and audiences alike, despite Chastain emerging with its reputation intact. She did her best with the material, just like the other key players in the movie, they just deserved to lend their talents to something much better.
However, The 355 was at least significantly higher than Avawho have come and gone without any fanfare in the summer of 2020. A 16% Rotten Tomatoes score and 29% user rating tells you everything you need to know about the history of assassins and shadowy government organizations fueled by revenge for Tate Taylor, but he wasn’t even the first name to sit in the director’s chair.
The B-level actor was scripted by Matthew Newton, who was originally meant to do double duty. When disturbing allegations of assault and domestic violence came to him in August 2018, Chastain was criticized in some circles for being a hypocrite after publicly supporting the #MeToo movement. In the end, Newton quit rather than be fired, but even an accomplished pair of hands like Taylor couldn’t save Ava.
Despite the presence of Chastain, Colin Farrell, John Malkovich, Geena Davis, Common and Ioan Gruffudd among the ensemble, the story of an aggrieved agent who goes rogue to find his former employers after they hit her is derived to the point of triviality, but at least the leading lady acts as a respectably solid anchor.
At the end, Ava sank without a trace when it was first released in theaters and on VOD, but it looks like it’s about to return. According to FlixPatrolthis terminally tedious effort shattered HBO Max’s most-watched list, making us long for subscribers who wasted 97 minutes of their lives.
