John Cena's Matchbox movie is Apple TV+'s top film despite rough reviews

Verdict: If you're curious about a Matchbox movie with John Cena as a spy, it's streaming now on Apple TV+, but reviews suggest lowered expectations.

Remember when Barbie blew up in 2023 and suddenly every toy brand wanted a movie? Well, here's Matchbox: The Movie, and it just became the number one film on Apple TV+ both in the U.S. and worldwide.

John Cena plays a secret agent who gets framed and has to team up with his childhood friends to recover a stolen nuclear weapon and clear his name. Jessica Biel, Sam Richardson, Teyonah Parris, and Arturo Castro round out the cast.

Sam Hargrave directed it. He's the guy behind Netflix's Extraction movies, so he knows how to stage action. The question is whether a Matchbox movie—based on those little die-cast cars you played with as a kid—can carry a feature-length spy story.

Straight to streaming

Apple skipped theaters entirely and dropped the film straight onto its platform. That's becoming more common, but it also means you won't get the big-screen spectacle treatment.

Critics have been harsh. Rotten Tomatoes shows a score in the mid-20s, which is rough territory. Reviewers seem to think the concept doesn't quite deliver, even with Cena's charm and Hargrave's action chops.

Why it matters

This is another swing at the toy-movie trend that Barbie kicked into overdrive. Some of these will land, some won't. Matchbox clearly found an audience—it's topping the charts—but whether that audience sticks around or recommends it to friends is another story.

If you've got Apple TV+ and a free evening, it's there. Just know what you're walking into: a toy-brand action comedy that's more about spectacle than substance, according to most reports.