Read Cabell's review of Gemini Man.
Gemini Man is an innovative action-thriller starring Will Smith as Henry Brogan, an elite assassin, who is suddenly targeted and pursued by a mysterious young operative that seemingly can predict his every move. The film is directed by Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Ang Lee and produced by renowned producers Jerry Bruckheimer, David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Don Granger. Also starring are Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Clive Owen and Benedict Wong. Gemini Man opens in theaters October 11, 2019.
Gemini Man is in theaters on October 11th, 2019.
Henry Brogan is an elite assassin who becomes the target of a mysterious operative who can seemingly predict his every move. To his horror, he soon learns that the man who's trying to kill him is a younger, faster, cloned version of himself.
So Gemini Man is directed by Ang Lee (who previously directed “Brokeback Mountain” and “Hulk”), and right from the start I have to say I was very intrigued in the plot. To my surprise actually. I really thought this film was extremely generic. We’ve all seen the hitman or spy on the run from another spy film before. But this had an interesting twist on it with Henry starting to feel worn out by all the jobs he’s done, while is clone comes into the picture. But right when that idea full of emotion is introduced, it is never brought up again.
Diving deeper into the issues with this film, the whole cast has no chemistry. Whether the actors are giving ‘A’ or ‘D’ performances, nobody seems like they’ve ever talked to each other before. The script doesn't help this either. It is full of explanation...so much explanation. At points it feels like the actors are just looking at the camera and telling the audience what is happening. The script is also filled with Batman and Robin style forced symbolism throughout (mostly clone related). But even if you set all that aside, you still have to deal with lines like “Look at me, dummy”.
Going into the cast, I really enjoyed Mary Elizabeth Winstead performance (previously seen in “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” and “Smashed”) as Danny Zakarweski. She was definitely the most interesting character on screen by showing the most charisma. On the other hand, we have Will Smith (previously seen in “Men in Black” and “Aladdin”) who just seems to be phoning it in. Now I don’t know if it was the CGI or Will Smith’s performance, but young Will Smith just seemed to talk like a robot. He was very restricted and seemed to be a very one note character.
To conclude this review, the script is a mess, the chemistry is garbage, the ending is very strange and forced. This movie was not for me. Not set all that aside, at the end of the day I was entertained. If you want to just sit down and watch a silly popcorn movie this is the movie for you. But for everyone else, I just can’t recommend this film.
Rating: 1.5 out of 5
Cabell (Senior Contributor) is a filmmaker from Tampa, Florida. He will watch just about any film but when he's not reviewing the latest hits he spends time directing films of his own.Click Here to check out Cabell's Articles.