Daily Times

While X-Men scribe Simon Kinberg’s junky action thriller chooses not to reveal the meaning behind its truly forgettable title until the end, I’m going to start by explaining that The 355 is a reference to Agent 355, one of America’s first female spies, deployed during the late 18th century, real identity forever unknown. Perhaps the reason we find this out so very late is that a mere whiff of this story ends up being far more dramatically enticing than the film it’s inspired, the first big release of the year doubling up as its first big disappointment. Back in 2017, while in the middle of shooting another ill-advised disaster – the loathed X-Men spinoff Dark Phoenix – Jessica Chastain approached Kinberg about creating a female-led action thriller in the vein of James Bond and Mission: Impossible. By the following summer, the film was presented to buyers at Cannes by Chastain and co-stars, an appealingly commercial package that was unsurprisingly snapped up fast.