Gemini Man (Ang Lee, 2019): China | USA

Reviewed by Kaio Farkouh.

I wish I could have all the technology that director Ang Lee had to make this, so I could go back in time, back in 2012. A time where Ang Lee made “Life of Pi”, the movie that made Lee won his second academy awards as best director and was nominated in the other 10 categories. Good and old times.

It was back in 2016 when Lee came up with this much better lens that can record 120 frames per second, “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” -most of the theaters in the world and here in the US do not support. For you to have an idea, most films are shown in 24 frames per second. The reason behind it is to make the action scenes look much more real and smoother.

Again now with “Gemini Man” Lee uses this high frame lens, Will Smith plays Henry Brogan. A hitman that has served for many years. He starts the film doing a mission in where he needs to execute a man that is supposed to be a terrorist. As usual, he gets his job done, but Smith is tired of this life of killing people, he is passed this point and as conscious and experience he seeks some peace and decides to retire. However, he is informed that he got into an ambush and killed a scientist. This is where he needs to go rogue and needs to face his own government. Scientist Clay Verris played by the actor Clive Owen decides to clone Smith characters to make a younger version of himself, a version without all the pain of killing and, not as conscious as older Smith. Making him the supposed perfect agent.

Written by David Benioff, X-men Origins: Wolverine, and Billy Ray, Captain Phillips, they lack in a generic story, with flat characters. Some bad punchlines and a generic villain. This movie can not be saved by its technology. The story touches on one interesting point, for example, the lack of conscious that the government has on its soldiers and how they do not care about their feelings. Making them less human as possible, but the movie is very predictable. As good and charismatic as Smith is, there is not for him here. He does fine, but there is not much to do with a bad script.

The CGI is as bad as the screenplay is- de-aging technology seems to become popular this year, in films such as “It: Chapter 2” or the upcoming Netflix movie “The Irishman” but here just not does not work. Whenever the younger version of Smith shows up, Junior, you can clearly see something weird on his face, that might take you out of the movie. And we can not forget about the action scenes that are also very generic and the CGI gets worse as the movie.

I just miss the 2012’s Ang Lee, and if I could say something to him is please stick to some compelling storytelling and not so much on the technology of your lenses or generic plots. With “Life of Pi”, Lee mixes very good CGI in a compelling story, but his past 2 movies make it seems that he forgets how to make a good film.

GRADE: 1/5

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Published:
10.10.19 / 9am
Category:
Films