My review of Matchbox The Movie is a mixed one. On the one hand, it’s a stupidly good fun movie, with cars, explosions, and John Cena beating people up. However, that comes with a ‘but’, that I will get on to later.
Matchbox stars Cena, Jessica Biel, Arturo Castro, Sam Richardson, Teyonah Parris, Daniel Barnhardt, Danai Gurira, Kristofer Hivju, and Corey Stoll. Sam Hargrave is the director and is best known for the Extraction movies.
The story
The story for Matchbox the Movie is very, very tenuous to Matchbox the cars. The story is:
When a group of former childhood friends reconnect, their reunion takes a wild turn as they stumble upon a dangerous international plot—and must save the world.
We open with a bunch of kids who hang around a garage in the 80s. It belongs to Smalley, who’s Aimee’s uncle. It’s a little haven for the kids, where they can play with Matchbox cars and escape the bullies.
Sean likes Aimee, but they all grow up and make their own way in the world. Sean (now Cena) is an arms dealer, but for a secret agency of the CIA. He’s taking names and kicking ass while stealing a nuclear warhead. Pfft, that’s a Tuesday morning for me.
After a successful mission, he learns of Smalley’s passing and heads home. He meets up with the old gang, but they all end up drugged and kidnapped on a plane. Turns out, the bomb has gone missing, and the CIA thinks it’s his fault. They also think his old gang are part of his team.
That’s all I’ll spoil of the story, but it’s solid and a good adventure.
The Cast
Not much to say here; everyone does a good job. I know some of you don’t like Cena, but I don’t know; I like him. He knows exactly what he is: a musclehead who’s lucky to be in movies. I don’t see him winning any Oscars soon, but he does what he’s supposed to do, and he does it well.
I hate to say a ‘Younger Rock’, but he is, you know, before the Rock went all Dwayne Johnson. I hope Cena doesn’t follow the same route.
Biel is stunning! That lady hasn’t aged a day in the past 20 years.
Everyone else does what they are supposed to do, and again, they do it well.
Matchbox?
Overall, this movie is great fun, great fun, stupidly good fun. Again, that’s with the caveat that it’s a family-friendly movie. There is some kick-ass fighting, but with very little blood.
However, the relation to Matchbox is very, very light. The old gang call themselves the Matchbox ‘gang’ (or something like it), and that’s about it. Young Sean was going to give Aimee her dream Matchbox car, but didn’t as a kid.
Then, for a movie about Matchbox cars, there are not many cars in it to be honest. There’s an amazing opening stunt, which I will mention later; the rest of the movie is globe-trotting around the world. It’s only in the third act that they actually get in some cars.
I’m being picky. I mean, how else do you make a movie called Matchbox? I would have said more cars, but then, I’m not a top Hollywood writer; I’m no Leslie Hedlund.
Stunts?
This brings me on to another annoyance about Matchbox: the stunts. I said there is an amazing opening stunt, and it is! They broke a world record for cars doing barrel rolls. The previous record was 8.5; they opened aiming for 9…they did 14.
Sam Hargrave and the Matchbox team needed 9 car barrel rolls to break the Guinness World Record. They performed 14.
#MatchboxTheMovie — October 9 https://t.co/tJ0aIfLtNv
— Apple TV (@AppleTV) October 6, 2026
Impressive right? There are also other amazing stunts: dangling from helicopters, fast driving, big explosions.
I have a lot of respect for the stunt guys in movies; they have balls of solid rock. However, in Matchbox, there are also moments where it’s obviously CG. This annoyed me a bit, because I did think ‘go all in, or don’t do it at all’.
The stunt work is amazing, but then I imagine a lot of people will watch this and say ‘Great CG!’. It’s a shame we live in a world where it’s hard to tell these days.
They were talking about adding an Academy Award for stunt work, and I’m behind that 100%. However, CG has just taken the magic out of it. I would be pretty bummed out if I did an amazing stunt for a movie, only for people to say, ‘Those animators are amazing’.
Overall
I can’t help but be a little overly critical of any movie, and I’m sorry to do it for this one. Matchbox is good fun. It’s a callback to the 80s action movies we loved so much. Those VHS tapes you were allowed to rent from the local store.
The story is a bit silly, but you don’t care. The action is good fun, and you enjoy it. I think Stark said that 10-year-old him would have thought of it as the greatest movie eva! I agree with that; younger me would have had a blast with it.
Yes, it gets a little ‘tick boxy’ near the end, as all the group grow up to cover all of the DEI bases. I also thought it was a bit odd that we see what everyone does grown up; one can fly a helicopter, one can drive a digger, one is good at science. You know this will all do something at the end of the movie, but it was a little lacklustre.
I did like the idea of the old gang just being civilians now, living their normal lives, only to be thrown into the middle of a global nuclear threat. All because one of their gang went into the CIA; it made for some good moments of comedy.
If you want some mindless fun for a couple of hours, you’ll have fun with Matchbox the Movie. I’m giving it a solid 3.5 out of 5 stars. Lots of fun for everyone.
