‘Heart of Stone’ Ending Explained: Gal Gadot Hopes to Start a New Franchise for Netflix
Regardless of what you might think of her, there’s no denying that Gal Gadot is one of Hollywood’s biggest movie stars. Despite an obvious lack of talent, her presence, charisma, and good picking of roles have launched her into the stars. As a former combat fitness instructor, Gadot proved to be a good pick for the roles of those typical, badass action characters. She started as Gisele in the ‘Fast & Furious’ franchise, and the role of Wonder Woman in DCEU has earned her global recognition.
Two years ago, Gadot starred alongside Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds in ‘Red Notice,’ which became Netflix’s most-watched original movie ever despite mixed to negative reviews. The ‘Red Notice’ sequels, two of them, are currently in development, and while we’re waiting for those, Gadot starred in another movie that Netflix hopes to become a franchise starter. In ‘Heart of Stone,’ Gal Gadot plays Rachel Stone, an international intelligence agent who will uncover a plot that aims to steal an AI weapon known only as “the Heart.” And as it usually goes, worldwide adventure is awaiting the main heroine as she’s trying to save the world.
The rest of this article contains spoilers for Netflix’s ‘Heart of Stone’!
Rachel Stone tries too hard to be the poor man’s Ethan Hunt!
Ever since it was first announced, ‘Heart of Stone’ didn’t try to hide the fact that it’s trying to be a female-led ripoff combination of ‘James Bond’ and ‘Mission: Impossible’ movies. However, while the movie is filled with plenty of action, the main problem is that basically every action sequence was already seen in some superior movies, and the star of Gal Gadot’s caliber is brought here only because Netflix knows that she’s going to lure the people into the movie, which is why we wouldn’t be surprised if this gets a sequel as well.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s talk about this first movie, and we’ll worry about the possible sequel when the time comes. For now, let’s look at what happened in this movie and how its ending sets up a potential sequel.
The movie begins with a team of four MI6 agents, Stone, Parker, Yang, and Bailey, as they’re in the middle of an operation to take down an arms dealer. Gadot’s Rachel Stone is initially depicted as a tech operative, not a field agent. Already there, you can see there’s more to her than meets the eye. It doesn’t take long to see that she’s an international operative who is only undercover at MI6. In reality, Stone works for an organization called Charter, which uses an AI tool called the Heart to help them with their missions.
Following this first mission, which ends with the targeted arms dealer dead, the agents find out about a young hacker Keya Dhawan, who wants to get a hold of the Heart. Stone is aware of that as the Charter agent, unlike her fellow MI6 agents. In the next mission, Stone and her team are sent to Lisbon, where a group of mercenaries ambushes them.
Unwilling to let her team die, Stone reveals herself as the highly-trained Charter agent and saves her team. However, just as she is about to explain things to them, Parker kills Yang and Bailey and reveals herself as an antagonist who works with Keya. Parker leaves Stone alive but poisoned, with an electronic chip under her skin to sabotage the Charter from the inside.
Once the Charter is compromised, Parker and Keya begin the next step of their plan, to steal the Heart. Stone tries to stop them, but Parker manages to escape, while Stone and Kya wind up in the desert. Having no other choice, they go to the nearest town together, where Parker’s mercenaries are waiting for Stone. Stone escapes, and Keya returns to Parker.
After establishing contact with her boss Nomad, Stone flies to Iceland to stop Parker. Parker and Keya activate the Heart, and Parker uses it to kill all the high-profile agents of Charter and locks Nomad and her team inside a bunker to die as the oxygen is running out. Seeing Parker’s true nature, Keya disables the Heart and calls Stone to ask for her help. Stone arrives just in time as Parker is threatening Keya to reactivate the Heart. After some fighting, Stone kills Parker.
Ending Explained: How it sets up a potential sequel?
In the end, Keya gets arrested, but Stone offers her a pardon to come to work with her at the Charter. In the last scene, Stone is on her next mission with Keya and Jack, her colleague from the Charter. Keya now works as a tech operative, and together, the trio embarks on a new mission.
From the moment it was first announced, it was obvious that Netflix intended to start a new spy action thriller franchise with ‘Heart of Stone.’ Of course, it all depends on the viewership, but when you have Gal Gadot as the main star, we have no doubt that a lot of households will watch this movie, despite mixed and negative reviews.
The movie ended with Stone working with her new team, so if the sequel happens, we can most likely expect the return of not only Gal Gadot but also Alia Bhatt as Keya and Matthias Schweighöfer as Jack. Sophie Okonedo as Nomad is also very likely to return in the potential sequel. Since Jaime Dornan’s Parker was killed off in the end, we presume that the sequel will come up with some new villain and hopefully some new motivation because chasing a MacGuffin that’s related to an AI weapon; how many times we’ve seen that before?
Netflix’s problem is that, whoever greenlights screenplays there, is easily satisfied with generic action movies. Just look at the last few years; ‘Red Notice,’ ‘The Grey Man,’ ‘The Mother,’ and ‘Heart of Stone’ doesn’t fall far from that generic company. We aren’t sure that building the franchises on such cliche movies is wise, but who the hell asks us?
We can only wait to see the viewership records after this opening weekend. ‘Red Notice’ is still the most-watched original movie on Netflix, and will ‘Heart of Stone’ will be at least half successful, remains to be seen.
‘Heart of Stone’ is now streaming on Netflix!
