Critic Reviews

Thanks to a powerhouse cast, a director who did stunts in “Avengers” movies, excellent cinematography from Pedro Luque, and editing by Dirk Westervelt, it’s quite fun.

Matchbox: The Movie is one of the most entertaining generic streaming action comedies, which says very little.

Things become serviceable when it gets past the self-justification and just leans into its cars-go-boom appeal.

Matchbox: The Movie isn't a disaster. It's watchable if you've got two hours to kill on some mindless action schlock. That's not good enough, though, for a film that feels more like propaganda for a toy, where the script is given little importance.

One of these sounds like a fun action-comedy, the other like a feature-length commercial. Matchbox: The Movie is hardly the first film tasked with being both, especially in recent years, and that needle is hardly impossible to thread. Barbie certainly did it. But what I still can't decide is whether this movie is the first saddled with the baggage of the second, or the second that sometimes manages to feel like the first. In either case, it's a shame that I have to spend the action set pieces and comedic bits trying to keep my enthusiasm from turning to ash in my mouth.

Matchbox: The Movie can’t quite decide if it wants to be a car movie or fighting movie, and in aiming to split the difference, Coggeshall mostly tackles the film’s emotional themes with a heavy air of obligation rather than dedicated interest.

Everyone on the screen is extremely likable, and all of them feel like they’re in a commercial for a product they can’t remember. Was it a toy? Was it a car? Was it a world-eating mega-corporation? I don’t remember buying anything, and yet I felt poorer at the end of this movie than I did at the start.

Matchbox: The Movie never quite justifies its existence. If you cut the corny, ham-fisted references to playing with Matchbox cars as a kid, the film arguably improves greatly. It infuriatingly lacks identity, as its blend of comedy and action lessens the impact of both.

Ellison and Skydance have amassed a great deal of power and capital in Hollywood but junk like this is a glum warning sign of what will be done with it.

A risible mess of in-your-face product placement and overly familiar plotting, this can’t be saved even by a talented cast of comedians. You’d be better off playing with toy cars.