I watched The 355 with mixed expectations. It has several glamorous actresses, so I knew that would be a plus. And I expected some decent suspense. But it turned out to be a poorly defined film lacking a solid storyline. The net result, to put it bluntly, is that The 355 is a disorganized mess, and is really just barely mediocre.

The 355 is in the genre of a spy thriller, and the main conflict is that a top-secret weapon has fallen into the hands of mercenaries. Several female agents mobilize to keep them from using the weapon, which would have worldwide catastrophic consequences. The agents include Jessica Chastain as Mace, Penelope Cruz as Graciela Rivera, Bingbing Fan as Lin Mi Sheng, Diane Kruger as Marie Schmidt, and Lupita Nyong’o as Khadijah Adiyeme.

I will give the film props for some of its action sequences, and there were some suspenseful segments. But despite the all-star lineup, to me this film came off as a Bourne film meets Charlie’s Angels and topped with a silly 007 approach. And it just never really became clear exactly how their mission was critical.

It’s really a struggle to be positive with this one. Director Simon Kinberg is still new to the directing game, and that may be where much of the blame lies. The film is disorganized and has no compelling factors to be anything close to a blockbuster hit, in spite of its great cast. The film didn’t even come close to living up to the trailers, which really just tried too hard. Just two stars for The 355.