About the film (courtesy of Universal Studios):
A dream team of formidable female stars come together in a hard-driving original approach to the globe-trotting espionage genre The 355. When a top-secret weapon falls into mercenary hands, wild card CIA agent Mason “Mace” Brown (Jessica Chastain) will need to join forces with rival badass German agent Marie (Diane Kruger) former MI6 ally and cutting-edge computer specialist Khadijah (Lupita Nyong’o) and skilled Colombian psychologist Graciela (Penélope Cruz) on a lethal, breakneck mission to retrieve it, while also staying one-step ahead of a mysterious woman, Lin Mi Sheng (Bingbing Fan), who is tracking their every move.

Here were are at the beginning of a new calendar year, and while this may give many of us an optimistic outlook as we inch into 2022, I typically dread the kickoff of historically less than stellar offerings. And if you’re curious as to why, let’s take a quick look at what the last ten years has given us. The Devil Inside (2012), Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013), Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014), The Woman in Black 2: Angels of Death (2015), The Forest (2016), Underworld: Blood Wars (2017), Insidious: The Last Key (2018), Escape Room (2019), The Grudge (2020), Shadow in the Cloud (2021) – these are what we have been “gifted” by various studios to ring in the new year. Thank you, kind and generous movie studios???

You have to keep reminding yourself that this is a business, and as such, corporations are doing what they need to in order to salvage every dollar they can. Consider this a cautionary reminder as to where expectations should lie. The 355 is the first new film of 2022 and lists a very strong cast, could this finally be the year that this disappointing trend is bucked?

Simon Kinberg, director of the disappointing X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019), helms his second feature film, The 355. His work as a writer contains a much larger sample size as Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Sherlock Holmes (2009), This Means War (2012) and four of the X-Men entries are several of the movies in which he is credited for. With a talented cast that consists of Jessica Chastain, Sebastian Stan, Diane Kruger, Lupita Nyong’o, Penélope Cruz and Edgar Ramírez, before the first scene is filmed, there’s some impressive credibility here. Things are trending in a positive direction.

Nope. The 355 ends up being just another first week of January snoozer. The story and its execution leaves much to be desired as this plays out like a poor man’s or woman’s Jason Bourne or Ocean’s movie. It attempts to be thrilling and intriguing, but most of the misdirects and mystery are either seen miles away or completely unnecessary. There are few decent action sequences and even the story (at times) draws you in. And the acting performances are not bad or anything like that. Some of the lines spoken leave much to be desired though.

The 355 brings with it some entertainment, but not enough recommend going out of ones way to check it out. There are just too many predictable moments and shortcomings to buckle in and want to continue on this ride. But maybe knowing the bar is lowered while not expecting too much, you might find a few pleasant surprises within your two hours watching. Maybe this will be different in 2023…for now though, you can check this one out in theaters right now.