Bomb Report
Title: The 355
Directed By: Simon Kinberg
Written By: Theresa Rebeck, Simon Kinberg
Release Date: January 7, 2022
Domestic Distributor: Universal
Cast: Jessica Chastain, Penelope Cruz, Fan Bingbing
Rated: PG-13 for Sequences of strong violence, brief strong language, and suggestive material.
Genre: Thriller – Suspense
Box Office Information
- Budget: $75,000,000
- Financed by: FilmNation Entertainment, Freckle Films, Genre Films, Universal Pictures, Simon Kinberg
- Domestic Box Office Gross: $14,570,455
- Overseas Box Office Gross: $4,333,260
Official Trailer
Box Office Numbers
With a production budget of $ $75,000,000, a worldwide box office is 0.3 times the production budget, The 355 took $14,570,455 domestically and grossed $4,333,260 overseas at the box office.
The 355 played to 3145 theaters and took $4,621,765 (31.7%of total gross) in its opening weekend.
The film played to a total of 3145 theaters domestically and took a domestic share of some 77.1%.
Having ranked 3rd in its opening weekend, The 355 and held close to it at 4th in its second weekend – running for a total of 8 weeks, with an average weekend domestic gross of $835 per theater based on a 4.5 weeks average run per theater.
The 355 was released to a total of 14 countries internationally, with the main markets being the United Kingdom with a lifetime gross of $1,249,728, Mexico, with a lifetime gross of $583,419, and Russia, lifetime gross of $543,478.
Synopsis
There’s this top secret weapon, see? And if it falls into the wrong hands it can be used to turn spinach into kale, which will confuse the heck out of vegans worldwide and cause a run on the market. This in turn will destroy the supply chain for everything from bananas to hot water bottles. And since Superman and Batman are busy with more important things like running a 5K marathon for homeless LGBT nutmeg harvesters, world leaders have to call in the second string.
This means tapping a wildcard federal agent named Mace Brown and asking her to assemble a team of rogue, off-the-grid operators, to track down the bad guys who stole the secret weapon. Once they find the weapon they are authorized to sit around, talking endlessly about their childhood and why their mothers didn’t show them enough affection.
Her team consists of Hans Off, a German computer genius who hacks into DoorDash orders to change french fry orders to carrot sticks. She keeps a pet vole named Squeaky who plays a pivotal role in the films finale – and if you don’t pay this site a sizable ransom in bitcoin right now we will email you the spoiler. (We can do it, too – cuz we/ve already hacked into your data and got your email address, plus lots of other goodies.)
Another member of the team is Kadijah, from Afghanistan. She is a lethal martial arts expert. She can use a stalk of celery to neuter a man in twenty seconds. The scar on her left cheek was given to her by Ish Kabibble during a fierce combat scene that is shown in flashback, with English subtitles, that has nothing whatsoever to do with the plot. Apparently the producers were feeling out audiences to see if they wanted to see more of the Ish Kabibble character so they put him in his own movie.
The last team member is Graciela, who can read minds and influence people to buy candy bars at the checkout counter. Her awesome powers have led her to be incarcerated in a Colombian jail that drips rats and runs out of toilet paper on a regular basis. Mace rescues her from prison for the mission, but nobody trusts Graciela farther than they can throw her because she wears her Nike t-shirt inside out; and if you don’t respect product placement in movies you are obviously a quisling from the get-go.
A mysterious Asian woman, Hu Flung Dung, thwarts their efforts to recapture the secret weapon at every step. She never speaks, except to say “Release the scuppernongs!” We eventually discover that she has been hired by the Hagenbach-Wallace syndicate to sow discord among super secret CIA teams in order to initiate a new world order. Or maybe it’s to sell Mary Kay products – it gets hard to tell what anyone’s doing in this film after the first ten minutes.
The movie moves from Paris to Morocco to Shanghai, with explosions and car chases and shoo-outs along the way. In the end, Mace and her crew become fast friends and open a Jiffy Lube in Big Sur, California.
Why this movie didn’t work
The stars, Jessica Chastain and Penelope Cruz, as well as the other women in the cast, are stunningly beautiful – so wives would not let their husbands go see it.
Oh, and it’s riddled with more cliches and stale espionage tropes than a Swiss cheese has holes.
