Netflix’s new Mark Wahlberg & Halle Berry movie gets dreadful Rotten Tomatoes score

Not heard of The Union? We don’t blame you – the new Mark Wahlberg and Halle Berry movie has just dropped on Netflix, but Rotten Tomatoes is already dragging it.

What do you get when you put two of Hollywood’s biggest talents together on the world’s largest streaming service? A mediocre action movie – or at least that’s what’s happened according to Rotten Tomatoes.

The Union, starring Halle Berry and Mark Wahlberg, follows construction worker Mike after he’s recruited for a US intelligence mission by his childhood sweetheart Roxanne.

It sounds like a foolproof plot, but the new movie has debuted with a 42% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Roger Moore at Movie Nation wrote: “Generic in the extreme, predictable to a laughable degree and littered with dialogue as inane and cliched as the characters and the situations.”

“Two Oscar winners and a Wahlberg fail to elevate this green screen dream above being a derivative espionage rom-com with an expensive soundtrack and clunky dialogue that feels like it was written, filmed, and edited within the course of two weeks,” Joseph Robinson at Fish Jelly Films agreed.

Andrew Parker at The Gate added: “Everything here is fine. But to celebrate this for being just okay is like celebrating a plain rice cake for doing its job as a rice cake or room temperature water for being lukewarm. What is there to celebrate?”

It’s safe to say the movie isn’t Netflix‘s greatest success, following in the footsteps of originals Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F and Atlas.

However, some agree that the only thing saving The Union from being a total catastrophe is Wahlberg and Berry themselves.

“If you’re a fan of Wahlberg and Berry, you’ll enjoy their performances, but don’t expect a memorable or thought-provoking movie. The Union is a one-time watch for fans of action-packed spy thrillers, but it won’t keep you invested,” Dhaval Roy at The Times of India said.

Pete Hammond at Deadline Hollywood Daily agreed: “Because of a fortuitous star teaming of Mark Wahlberg and Halle Berry – two vets of the genre working together for the first time – it really is a cut above and just pure entertainment.”

Thankfully, this isn’t the last time we’ll see either of them on the big screen this year. Berry is set to star in survival horror movie Never Let Go, while Wahlberg is heading to the skies in Flight Risk.

If The Union hasn’t caught your interest, check out more new movies streaming this month and the best movies of the year so far.