I had seen the ad for the new Peacock movie The 355 plenty of times before, but I hadn’t considered watching it. 

While contemplating what to write my review on, I saw the ad yet again. I called my friend and told her to come over; we had a movie to watch. I am glad she was subject to the horror of this film with me. 

The first scene led me to believe the movie would be understandable and somewhat interesting, but as the screen faded into a flash forward, I came to the realization that this movie is nothing short of a confusing mess. 

One confusing aspect of the film was the number of characters introduced at once. I still can’t name any of them or what purpose they served in the story. What frustrated me the most was the fact that more characters were constantly being added; I finally believed I was on the verge of having a grasp on who was who, but two new people would be introduced, and I was yet again thrown into mayhem. 

I do remember Nick Fowler was played by Sebastian Stan, and only because I love Stan, who is an amazing actor and plays the part of a villain or morally-grey character perfectly. Nick was predictable, but entertained me more than the rest of the movie; Stan is always worth paying attention to. 

The characters were not the only mind-numbing aspect of the movie; the plot was a predictable bore. My friend and I turned to one another countless times, either complaining about how long the movie was taking, calling out the next big “plot twist,” or saying this movie needs to end. 

One turn-off for motion pictures is when there are unnecessary failures, especially when it seems as though the movie is ending. A large part of the plot for The 355 counted on the “good” characters messing up; it made what could have been an hour-long movie into a two-hour and four-minute film. The amount of unnecessary scenes are uncountable. 

The predictability of the scenes also infuriated me. I want subtle clues to the big reveal, not obvious betrayals in every other scene. I prefer the suspicion of a character and fighting with my friend over who the betrayer will be. The obviousness of the movie led me to boredom. Part of the entertainment is piecing together the clues left by the directors and actors; noticing subtle wordplay, a camera shot of a seemingly useless object, or facial expressions leading to the one big plot twist keeps my attention and makes or breaks a movie. 

I honestly have only one good thing to say about this movie, it was a straight-up bad film. I wish I could say it was so bad it was good, but there were no redeeming aspects. Besides the all-female main characters, even though I found most of them irritating, I was pleasantly surprised this monstrosity called a movie had female spies that were not overly sexualized or dependent on men. That makes the fact that I would never subject this torture onto anyone else even more depressing.