Is it too much to ask for Netflix to start knocking out high-octane action thrillers that aren’t unstoppably average on such a regular basis? Sure, they always capture the attention of subscribers and fare admirably by the all-important data metrics, but Wingwomen will no doubt be forgotten by this time next month.
Admittedly, there was hope that star and director Melanie Laurent’s heist caper would buck the trend, but that was based almost entirely on the fact the French-language original wasn’t a Hollywood production, and it wouldn’t be unjust to say that the streaming service’s best actioners almost always hail from international shores.
Of course, it doesn’t really matter what the critics think as long as people are watching, so lukewarm responses across the board, an average 50 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 56 user score on the aggregation site hasn’t done anything to prevent Wingwomen from debuting as the single most-watched new feature on the platform over the last week.
By notching 35.7 million hours viewed and 18.5 million views in total, the frivolous escapade that finds two best friends recruiting a third member of their team to pull off one last job before they retire from the game altogether has outstripped the equally-tedious thriller Locked In to be anointed as the biggest movie to have premiered on Netflix within the last seven days.
One monotonous exclusive beating out another is hardly something worth celebrating, but it doesn’t matter how banal the genre flicks tend to be, subscribers are going to keep on watching them regardless.