11 | August | 2023 | A Screenwriters Perspective: Current and Past Movies.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for the new Netflix movie “Heart of Stone”, starring Gal Gadot are a very low 29%. The reason for this is that this film is nothing more than an another reverse engineered action movie. No story, no explanations as to how, or why anything is happening. Just a chain of action scenes that are used in movie trailers to get people to watch the film- only to see the action, because once again, there is no real screenplay and no real story.

There are many fight scenes, some parachuting scenes, a scene where the main character Rachel Stone, played by Gal Gadot runs for her life with a massive fire following her on a huge Dirigible, but not much more. The other known actor in this film is Jamie Dornan, known for the very bad 50 Shades of Grey franchise. While some of the fight scenes were very impressive, they were not nearly enough for this movie to move into recommend status. The IMDB ratings for this film are also a very low and correct 5.1.

This is a movie only for fans of Gal Gadot and those who are only interested in the action scenes that they can see by fast-forward through the great majority of this movie, and missing the rest of this film which was nothing more of a bad retread of a many spy movies and nothing new.

In recent years the acronym for UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) has been updated to UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) that have become so prevelent that Congress has conducted hearings, interviewing Navy pilots who have seen flying objects that were not identifyable. The idea of aliens coming to earth in recent years has changed from impossible and ridiculous to now – something that one day may actually happen.

The problem for anyone who thinks they have seen a UFO/UAP or have been kidnapped by Aliens is that telling anyone without documented proof will get you sent to the nearest mental hospital. The main character in the new movie “Jules”, Milton Robinson, played very well by Ben Kingsley, Milton has partial dementia and is 79 years old. So when Milton goes to the town hall and casually mentions that an alien spaceship has landed in his backyard and killed his flowers – of course, nobody believes him. Milton also tells a store clerk that he needs to buy many apples to feed the alien that is living with him, and because he is slightly demented, the clerk tells Milton’s daughter, and his daughter thinks her father is losing his mind. One of the best parts about this new film is the gentle, matter-of-fact, quiet way the entire story unfolds.

Milton is friends with two women his age, Sandy and Joyce played by Harriet Sansom Harris and Jane Curtin and they both not only find out about the bald naked alien who is living with Milton, but they all become close friends, have lunch and dinner together, along with many conversations even though the alien they name Jules cannot speak. There is a good amount of humor in this movie and many subtle references to the movie “ET”, especially at the end. All of this works very well throughout this story. One crazy off-the-wall part of the conclusion is how the alien goes about creating the fuel he needs to return to his home planet, which might not sit well with animal lovers.

Overall I thought this movie was funny and highly unusual with a story well told. I agree with the high 84% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and recommend Jules.