Ava (2020)
(Netflix Streaming, October 2021) I don’t really mind Hollywood making movies about super-competent assassins—I just mind Hollywood making the exact same movie about super-competent assassins a dozen times every year. Namely the movie in which the super-competent assassin is targeted for elimination by their own superiors, and must fight his bigger-better-faster rival to escape. It’s all as familiar as it’s tedious, and the latest Ava is no exception—even featuring a female assassin is nowhere near an innovation these days. But perhaps Ava has to do without another Hollywood subgenre—the female star vehicle meant to showcase its star’s action-movie credentials, along the lines of Atomic Blonde (Charlize Theron, successful) or Peppermint (Jennifer Garner, not successful). Jessica Chastain is an impressive actress, and she generally does well here in an action-driven role. But she’s easily better than the rest of the film (along with Colin Ferrell and John Malkovich), which simply goes through the motions of the usual assassin formula. There’s a little bit of style, but it doesn’t lift the film above the morass. I always like seeing Boston on-screen or Joan Chen in even a small role, but again it’s not much when compared to the boredom of the main plot. In the end, Ava settles for being a somewhat mediocre action film—not badly put together, certainly strengthened by Chastain, but largely undistinguishable from so many other films of the same ilk.