Matchbox has one of those screenplays where it seems like everyone involved (well, in this case, screenwriter David Coggeshall) just sort of plugged a basic plot into an equally basic idea and let the rest of it operate on autopilot. That makes director Sam Hargrave’s movie sound a little worse than it actually is, which is to say that it’s passably diverting and ultimately a notch above mediocre. What makes the movie almost work is the series of genuinely creative and often kinetic action set pieces that prove or come close to proving the old film critic rule—that a movie’s not about what it’s about but about how it is about those things.
Then again, here is a movie that is a little too much about what it’s about, which for this movie means a completely nothingburger of an actual plot that keeps itself going for just a little too long to justify even these fun and diverting set pieces. As for the title of the movie, yes, this is also essentially a feature-length commercial for the toy-vehicle brand, in that its characters use a handful of various transportational devices to drive, ride or fly very fast—often away from a common threat, which here is so obvious that it’s sort of relief when Coggeshall and Hargrave reveal it almost from the start. That’s another thing to be grateful about: There is very little, if any, talking around the identity of the film’s main villain.
As for the heroes, there are five, though the main one is definitely the guy played by John Cena. He’s Sean Walker, an operative with the Central Intelligence Agency who has been tasked with trying to stop another world war by deflecting the path of a stolen nuclear warhead. Back home in whatever unspecified state of his childhood, a beloved father figure (played by Bill Camp in the brief prologue) has died, and Sean decides to risk blowing his own cover to attend the funeral.
That obviously means arriving back in the vicinity of his childhood friends and, especially, former crush Aimee, who’s now all grown up and played by Jessica Biel. She was married until recently, when the relationship fell apart, and Sean never married during the interim years after leaving home, so of course, the romantic tension will be as palpable as a constantly busy movie like this one will allow it to be. The other characters include Sean’s old best friend Crosby (Sam Richardson), his wife Charmaine (Teyonah Parris) who was also a fixture of Crosby’s childhood, and Ted (Arturo Castro), a science teacher with a husband and three kids.
No one’s personal lives really matter once the plot catches up to Sean, who suffers a grave personal and professional betrayal by some fellow operatives he once called friends. They’re after the nuclear warhead, too, though for selfish and/or banally evil and/or truly politically insane reasons, and Sean’s friend group is present when the bullets start flying. Naturally, they all go off to join Sean in his mission, and so, too, does the movie at the expense of pretty much anything and everything else.
Again, though, the movie’s bread and butter are its car-chase sequences, elegantly executed in a series of shot set-ups and faux long-takes that ensure we know exactly where everyone is in relation to everything else. The character types here ended up paying off in predictable but amusing and/or empowering ways, too, and it goes beyond the mere positioning of a CIA agent at the helm of the group. Aimee is an EMT who enjoys stunt racing as a hobby, Crosby is in construction and can handle a tow truck, and Charmaine reports the news from a helicopter, which—one supposes—means she can technically fly them, too (Ted is mostly here as comic relief, although that’s also Crosby’s role).
There is a healthy sense of humor to the movie, as well, which is occasionally tired but sometimes, such as in a pair of movie references, inspired—like when Ted tries a tricky maneuver with a shotgun that he saw in a sci-fi/action sequel or when a fake-out death’s follow-up reaction is cribbed entirely from the third installment in a movie-adventure series. The movie could have committed that bit, in fact, although it misplaces some sincerity by assuming that we care about its relationships a little more than we do. As for the villain(s), well, obviously no movie of this nature is going to end poorly for the good guys.
One sort of spends the whole of Matchbox acknowledging that it’s slightly better than it could have been, especially given the sad state of action-comedies when they go wrong, and wishing that it could have applied its attitude toward its action to the thin plot that only commits to the same, old thing. As is, it’s slight, diverting, not too bad, and kind of ok.
Rating: **½ (out of ****)
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