It's not an uncommon comedic trope to pair up a super-competent secret agent with a regular civilian who is out of their depth; Argyle, Central Intelligence and Knight And Day are some examples that I personally enjoyed. John Cena himself did something a little bit similar in Freelance (2024). Typically the humour comes from one character being out of their depth, the other struggling to babysit them while trying to save the world, until late in the film when the former finally adapts to the situation and comes through to save the latter, forging a feel-good bond of friendship in the process. The rather clumsily titled Matchbox The Movie follows this formula, but instead of one deadweight character we have four. Unfortunately I didn't think that worked.It was too many people arguing about every step, John Cena's Sean was pulled too many ways and his connection with any individual member of the pack didn't really feel fleshed out. This especially hurt when it came to his relationship with Jessica Biel's Aimee, a romantic subplot that really didn't get the time it needed to work. Overall I never really felt too invested in any of the characters. It didn't help that initially they weren't really that much of a burden, mostly just hanging around while John Cena fought then arguing about it later, but even by the end they weren't really very helpful, mostly just hanging around while John Cena fought. The entire movie, start to finish, really was "John Cena saves the day while being followed by four coughing babies".
The movie does try to flesh out the characters and their relationships. It starts off by showing them all as children hanging out together, as if attempting to capture a fleeting memory of the viewer's own idealised childhood, like a page out of an old Archie comic. I just didn't buy it though; it all felt more like something out of an advertisment than real people doing real people things. The obtrusive product placement didn't help; these almost young adults calling themselves "The Matchbox Gang" because each one had a single Matchbox toy, an old mechanic cradling a tiny toy car and waxing poetically about how special and beautiful it was, a tiny toy being the central core of a confession of love, one kid's explicit expressions of affection for his Leatherman multitool; elements that stuck out like sore thumbs to me and broke my immersion.
Which is a shame, because the action was pretty decent. Nothing too special, but enjoyable enough, with some surprisingly well choreographed and shot hand-to-hand fights. As you might imagine almost all of the action happens in, around, or between various vehicles, but that didn't stop it from being reasonably varied - it wasn't all just car chases. Although there were a fair number of entertainingly over-the-top crashes, with cars and trucks soaring majestically through the air, cartwheeling like an olympic gymnast going for gold.
I will say that the action was surprisingly bloodless for how intense it sometimes was. Or perhaps it was sometimes surprisingly intense for a bloodless movie based on an old kids toy line? About the halfway through the movie I was starting to think we would never seen anyone actually die; yes, we'd see some pretty bad car crashes with people inside, but it's a movie, they could always still have survived. It wasn't until fairly late that we even so anyone get shot and actually drop - although they were all military types who could have been wearing vests and might have just been "knocked out" by the impact, but not actually killed? Again, movie. One guy was apparently blown up by a grenade, but it happened off-screen. So yeah, no actual conclusive on-screen deaths.
The cast was solid, though the writing never quite made the most of them. John Cena easily handled the everything the script threw at him - not just the action stuff - but was never really given the chance to show off his comedic chops. Jessica Biel was of course completely believable as the love interest, but wasn't really given very much to do; playing something of a straight man to the rest of the more "zany" cast left her feeling like something of a background character. Bill Camp, Arturo Castro, Sam Richardson, and Teyonah Parris all did fine with what they were given, and Danai Gurira did a lot despite having less screentime. Daniel Bernhardt seemed to be having fun with his role, which I enjoyed. For reasons that I don't fully understand, Corey Stoll's cartoonishly evil performance made me happy. Likewise Kristofer Hivju's jolly Russian brought a smile to my face. Golshifteh Farahani surprised me; bringing a great deal of depth and conviction to what initially seemed to be a throwaway stereotype character, all the while maintaining a mischevious and playful air.
I'm having a hard time giving this film more than a 6/10, even though I kind of want to. It's entertaining enough, but spends a lot of time with characters who don't quite work. I felt like the movie knew what it needed to do, and was making a genuine effort to do it, but didn't quite manage to pull it off. The thing is I appreciate the effort. The movie isn't objectionable, it just doesn't quite live up to what it could have been, doesn't quite deliver what I wanted from it. But still a decent watch if you're not paying cinema prices for it.
