There’s something weirdly admirable about just how shamelessly Matchbox: The Movie (yes, that is the actual title) behaves as a piece of corporate synergy/IP. It’s almost less fun to accuse it of being a glorified toy commercial (which it most certainly is) because it makes absolutely no pretense about the issue, and doesn’t even for a second expect you to not notice. Its opening sequence — set in 1998 — even features its main characters as tweens playing with Matchbox cars. Then Character Actor Bill Camp shows up to deliver a monologue about how great Matchbox cars are and how playing with them is pure, wistful nostalgia.
Flash forward to the present. Those tweens are now all grown up, but the influence of Matchbox remains strong in their lives. Annie (Jessica Biel) moonlights as a race car driver in between shifts as a hotshot EMT — to wit, she plays with a race car and an ambulance. Crosby and Charmaine (Sam Richardson and Teyonah Parris, respectively) eventually got married. He’s a construction contractor (we see him teach a guy how to operate an excavator) and she’s a helicopter pilot for the local news. Ted (Arturo Castro) is a high school chemistry teacher, which doesn’t have anything to do with vehicles, but he sure likes motorcycles a lot. Last but not least is Sean (John Cena), who is introduced to us in a rambunctious off-road desert chase scene. He’s a CIA agent in pursuit of a black market nuke. None of the others have heard from Sean in ages, but when Camp’s character — he’s Annie’s uncle — dies, they all reunite at his funeral — just in time for the CIA to kidnap them all, suspecting that the aforementioned nuke has been stolen by Sean. Now they all have to team up to survive and clear their names.
That’s a breathless amount of exposition for something with so little on its mind; although at a whopping 127 minutes, it’s not the only section of Matchbox that’s draggy and overlong. Thankfully, none of that setup and narrative palaver actually matters. This is the kind of film that has become a cliché to call “built for streaming,” the kind of movie where you can scroll on your phone and pop back in for the good parts without missing much — but that’s exactly what Matchbox is. The perk this time out is that requisite action is legitimately solid. Director Sam Hargrave is an accomplished stunt coordinator and previously best known as helmer of the delightfully violent Extraction films, and his action sequences here demonstrate real momentum and polish. Cena’s a big guy, and so Hargrave smartly pits him against more lithe combatants, like perennial henchman Daniel Bernhardt, to establish a particular kineticism. And where Extraction’s extended sequences were all designed as faux-one takes, here Hargrave shows his versatility, deploying a lot of faster cutting while still managing to avoid sacrificing clarity. As far as the copious vehicular mayhem, meanwhile, Matchbox doesn’t disappoint, delivering a bevy of excellent CG-augmented practical stuntwork, particularly in a climactic freeway chase involving ATVs, motorcycles, helicopters, and two tractor trailers.
Likewise helping matters is that everybody here is delivering strong comedic work. Cena is particularly good — if in his usual lane — mostly deadpanning his way through everyone else’s fear of suddenly being thrown into absurd action movie mortal danger. Less successful is an unrequited romance between him and Biel that never clicks, but that’s another one of those parts you can simply fast forward through if you feel the brakes hit too hard. After all, if we’re being honest, apart from its corporate mandate, Matchbox‘s only real imperative was to platform a few amusing, charismatic performances and deliver some nifty action. It seems like everyone here basically got the open book assignment.
DIRECTOR: Sam Garvey; CAST: John Cena, Jessica Biel, Sam Richardson, Bill Camp, Arturo Castro, Teyonah Parris; DISTRIBUTOR: Apple TV; STREAMING: October 9; RUNTIME: 2 hr. 7 min.
Comments are closed.