Plot: An action-packed, globetrotting adventure about a group of friends since childhood who have their lives upended when undercover CIA agent Sean, their long-absent former leader, returns to their small town and unwittingly gets them embroiled in a frantic international pursuit to save the world.
Review: There are very few movies that have actually turned out good when they have “The Movie” in the title. Over the last couple of decades, everything from board games to toy lines has been converted into a big-screen attempt at entertainment to cash in on marketing tie-ins, with few coming close to the success that Michael Bay’s Transformers franchise achieved. While Masters of the Universe was an underrated blast of fun, there have been countless other weak movies like Battleship that just cannot manage to make the link between toys and cinema a reality. The latest attempt, Matchbox: The Movie, hails from Apple TV and Mattel Studios and somehow falls right in the middle. On one hand, the iconic toy line of diecast vehicles doesn’t really offer very much in the way of plot but on the other, it created an entry point for a movie about all sorts of vehicles. But rather than creating a Fast and the Furious-style action extravaganza, Matchbox: The Movie instead is an action comedy that manages to be a lot more fun than it should have been, despite the overt marketing tie-ins.
After a brief introduction to middle-school friends dubbed the Matchbox crew (because they play with the titular toy cars), the movie fast-forwards almost three decades to find Sean Walker (John Cena), a globe-trotting CIA agent for a secret ops sub-group known as Blackthorn. When he is told to lie low by his handler and boss, Helen (Danai Gurira), Sean heads home upon hearing of the death of a family friend, Smalley (Bill Camp). Sean reunites with his childhood friends, each of whom is connected to a real-life version of a Matchbox car. Crosby (Sam Richardson) works construction and is great with heavy machinery; his wife Charmaine (Teyonah Parris) is a traffic reporter who flies a helicopter; Ted (Arturo Castro) is a nebbish chemistry teacher who drives a scooter, while Sean’s childhood crush Aimee (Jessica Biel) is an aspiring race car driver and EMT. After Smalley’s funeral, the gang reconnects over drinks when they are drugged and taken into custody by the deputy CIA director, Mosier (Corey Stoll), who believes Sean is a double agent who stole a nuclear warhead. Escaping, Sean teams with his childhood friends to recover the weapon and clear their names.
If you had to guess where the movie is going to go from the introduction of the characters and their corresponding vehicles, you would be right. Matchbox: The Movie does not innovate or mess with the formula of the action movie blockbuster, but it also digs in and has fun with the silly material. John Cena plays his part straight with very little mugging for the camera or his exasperated brand of comedy seen in Little Brother, Jackpot!, and, to a lesser extent, in Peacemaker. Cena plays Sean as an experienced spy and loner with an unrequited crush on Aimee, which is reignited when they see each other after twenty-eight years. Jessica Biel and John Cena have serviceable chemistry, but the entire crew works together, making it feel like an Average Joe version of The A-Team. There are little quirks like Crosby’s fear of flying and Charmaine’s desire to travel, creating a rift in their marriage, but it is all in service of them coming together to embrace their inner drive, which aligns with their signature vehicle. The first half of the film features several hand-to-hand combat scenes aboard planes and rooftops before transitioning to some spycraft and then to the substantial chase set-piece in which the Matchbox crew chases down the villains.
Veteran stunt coordinator and director Sam Hargrave made an impressive feature film debut helming Chris Hemsworth in the Extraction films for Netflix, as well as the underappreciated Apple TV series The Last Frontier, starring Jason Clarke. Here, Hargrave is not quite as gritty as he was with Chris Hemsworth in the long-take Extraction films, while Matchbox: The Movie opts for a more mainstream action feel. Still, there are a couple of fun homages to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade as well as Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The fight scenes are not as strong as the chase scenes with Hargave getting some pretty impressive explosions and crashes involving semi-trucks and race cars, but there is some dodgy CGI in places that diminishes it a bit. It also makes you wonder who this movie was made for, as it is too mature for little kids currently playing with toy cars, and fails to evoke much nostalgia for those of us who remember collecting Matchbox back in the day.
Scripted by David Coggeshell, who wrote the similarly themed spy movie The Family Plan, Matchbox: The Movie received story consultation from Matt Westbrook, best known for his work with Hargrave on the Extraction movies and with The Russo Brothers on their Netflix movie The Gray Man. With a massive budget at their disposal, you can easily see where the money was spent as the film jumps from international location to location, including scenes shot in Budapest, Casablanca, Slovakia, and Los Angeles. The production values are impeccable and feel wasted on a streaming release, as Matchbox: The Movie would have looked absolutely fantastic on the big screen. When Matchbox: The Movie is focused on the action, it works pretty well as it does when the protagonists are interacting, but it suffers whenever it tries to force in connections to the product line that only feels tangentially connected to the movie in the first place.
Helped by Sam Hargrave’s signature brand of nonstop action, Matchbox: The Movie works far better than I would have hoped. John Cena is a lot more subdued than he has been in his other action comedies in recent years, and it works in his favor. By having him play the experienced secret agent and bringing all of his average friends into out-of-the-ordinary circumstances does make for a fun fish-out-of-water vehicle. A little more emphasis on the variety of vehicles rather than on assembling a super team based on their unrealized skills could have worked better. It still feels like Matchbox was shoved in here when it didn’t need to be, and it does make this feel like a 2-hour commercial, which is a shame, because there is some actual fun to be had with this movie. Like Guy Ritchie’s Fountain of Youth, which also found itself relegated to the small screen when it should have been in the multiplex, Matchbox: The Movie will probably be overlooked by those who either don’t have a connection to the die-cast toys or may not see how it connects plotwise.
Matchbox: The Movie premieres on October 9th on Apple TV.
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