Every film is a little bit cynical. It is show business, after all. But there's cynical, and there's cynical, and Matchbox the Movie falls squarely in the latter category. It's a film so dreadfully bored with itself that a road trip with an elderly bingo group would raise the pulse higher.
As the name suggests, Matchbox the Movie is based on the miniature toy cars sold by Mattel. If you thought Barbie muddied the waters between film and extended commercial, just wait until John Cena and friends build their entire personalities around these pieces of plastic.
Cena plays Walker, a secret CIA agent who beats the audience to the punch by being bored of the film when we first meet him. As a kid, he was desperately in love with Aimee (Jessica Biel), whom he wanted to gift one of the titular cars. Their group, Ted (Arturo Castro), Crosby (Sam Richardson), and Charmaine (Teyonah Parish), lived for these cars, you see, to the point that they called themselves the Matchbox Gang. Then, one day, Walker's family moved to another town, and he didn't contact his friends for 28 years. Perhaps he was busy at the gym.
When their father figure and local mechanic dies, Walker returns to his hometown to reminisce, only to drag his friends along in an increasingly convoluted game of spy vs. spy. Walker is obviously innocent, and it doesn't take long to figure out who the villain is; the film drops the ball right away, as if afraid it might catch even a momentary sense of fun.
For two interminably long hours, Matchbox the Movie trudges from one dull set piece to the next without anything resembling forward momentum. At the halfway point, I got antsy, and things did not improve from there. By the final chase, which is the same as the previous three, I prayed for a power outage. Without a single piece of action, choreography, or comedy that sticks out, even in a bad way, Matchbox is so flat it's like a chemically neutral substance.
There's no reason a film like this can't be fun. Plenty of toy movies are at least entertaining, especially when they know exactly what they are. Matchbox tries to wink at the audience as if it's in on the joke, but is so clumsy it looks like it's having a stroke. By the end, when it musters a half-assed moment of sincerity, the insipid script can't help itself but make fun of that, too.
If only Matchbox the Movie were a worse film, at least then it would be interesting. But it isn't, and it isn't. Instead, it's the worst kind of background noise where you can experience the entire picture without even looking at it. The dialogue is all exposition, John Cena's performance is contractually obligated, and there's a sense that nobody wants to be here, least of all the audience.
It makes for passable background noise.
Joonatan Itkonen
