At The Movies: Heart Of Stone is no female answer to James Bond, The Monkey King delivers formulaic fun

Heart of Stone (PG13)

123 minutes, available on Netflix
2 stars

The story: Gal Gadot plays Rachel Stone, a highly skilled wonder woman of a super spy on a global mission to protect a powerful digital device from falling into the wrong hands.

Heart Of Stone puts star producer Gadot through her paces in a knock-off espionage thriller that is positioned to launch a Netflix franchise. Feel free to say stop, no more, after this uninspiring introductory experience.

The heroine skydives off a Halo carrier as if understudying Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018), and car-chases around the streets of Portugal’s Lisbon.

Stone is a member of The Charter, a secret international peacekeeping alliance modelled on the Impossible Mission Force where the British lady boss (Sophie Okonedo) is cut from the same stern cloth as James Bond’s M (Judi Dench).

Stone is a double agent, embedded undercover in Britain’s MI6.

Her unit leader, played by Jamie Dornan, is very handsome. But Stone’s attention is fully on stopping Bollywood beauty Alia Bhatt in her Hollywood debut as a mysterious hacker who attacks The Charter’s network and destabilises the world by nicking a quantum computer. This thingy can manipulate any system and even predict the future, and is “the most formidable weapon you never knew existed”.

It is known here as the Heart, and in the recent Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One as the Entity.

British director Tom Harper (The Aeronauts, 2019) and his writer Greg Rucka are incapable of a single idea of their own, other than an early plot twist.

Much less do they question the morality of omniscient technology – an all-too-real threat today – which might have given purpose to the daft story as Stone’s pursuit continues on to London, Iceland and the Sahara for more action stunts.

Hot take: Not the female answer to James Bond.

The Monkey King (PG)

92 minutes, premieres on Friday on Netflix
3 stars

The story: Hong Kong superstar Stephen Chow executive produces the Monkey King’s (voiced by Jimmy O. Yang) animated quest for immortality, vanquishing gods, demons, dragons and his greatest adversary – his ego.

The Monkey King extracts the first seven chapters of Wu Cheng’en’s 16th-century mythological classic Journey To The West for a superhero origin story.

Hatched from a rock complete with laser eyes and magical powers, mischievous Monkey is an immediate outcast, lonely and unloved, among the simians. He sets forth to conquer a hundred demons and become the Immortal One in his misguided belief that he can then gain acceptance.

He has with him his anthropomorphic fighting Stick, as well as a 13-year-old peasant girl (Jolie Hoang-Rappaport) who hopes Monkey will save her village from drought.

The adventure spans the undersea world of the Dragon King (Bowen Yang), Chinese Hell and Jade Heaven.

These backdrops and character designs are all that is distinctly Chinese in the Netflix Animation production helmed by Anthony Stacchi (The Boxtrolls, 2014). The comic action fantasy is standard fare, from its wisecracking hero on a self-actualisation journey to its Americanised humour despite an Asian voice cast. The most welcome is Stephanie Hsu as the wife of the mayor in a witty homage to Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle (2004).

But why nitpick? Children will want to just get on with the show.

And there is, for sure, much for them to enjoy in the vibrant visuals and hyperactive gongfu battles, even if these too – plus big musical number – are formulaic.

Hot take: The fabled Ming Dynasty deity has journeyed to the West in a kid-pleasing but generic animation, where his cultural heritage is purely ornamental.