Will Smith may not seem it, but he’s entered the age of venturing into vigilante flicks. It’s a genre where everyone gets their turn eventually. Though, I’m sure he’s hoping for more of something along the lines of Keanu Reeves’ retired hitman smash franchise, John Wick, over what the Taken sequels and subsequent copycats have done to the genre.
Will Smith plays Henry, a black ops assassin that must do “one last job” and then finally retire. However, when that job doesn’t go as planned, his superiors put a hit out on Henry and will stop at nothing to silence him. However, Henry is elite-level and it won’t be easy to take him down.
Seems simple enough, right? It’s a standard shady government ops flick where one person must survive long enough to reveal the truth and take down a powerful organization.
Enter the crux of the movie – The only person that can take down old Henry down is….a younger version of himself. For the rest of the movie, it’s a battle of the ages as a 51 year old Will Smith and a 25 year old CG Smith fight for survival.
There is limited space in a movie where a star like Smith has double billing, but there is just enough room for the supporting cast. Mary Elizabeth Winstead holds her own in a role that requires her to enact plenty of violence and keep the older Henry alive. She starts off as a great character, but over the movie’s runtime, she seems to be largely forgotten and less proactive only to be carried from scene to scene with Smith. Benedict Wong plays an old military colleague of Henry’s, he’s largely there to add in the few elements of comedic relief and to fly the group from one exotic locale to the next. Clive Owen is the standard big bad and there’s not much more to the character than that. He has a compelling monologue at the end of the movie, but it’s a theme that seems a little too smart for the action and violence happening around it. It’s quickly forgotten.
You have to wonder why director Ang Lee (Life of Pi, Brokeback Mountain) has jumped back into the action genre. While not every movie he directs is great, some are even duds, but there’s always some sense of crafted style to it. Gemini Man is a standard movie that would fit well in the Bourne canon (that’s not a compliment), but brings in sci-fi elements without truly exploring the reason why. Had this only been a Will Smith on-the-run movie, it would have fared better.
We are so close to great digital recreations of actors. There have been highlights of motion capture over the last few years, but it’s best in cameo segments. In a very risky move, CG Smith is the co-lead. It turns out to be a mixed bag. The first and last time you see Junior (young Will Smith), uncanny valley cannot be denied. However, the action scenes and the dark settings manage to make him seem like he really has been de-aged and that he’s really fighting himself.
When I struggle to attach to a particular movie, I ask “Who is this meant for?” In truth, this is made for older dads who love PG-13 action and want a basic story of a man wronged, who will eventually take down a nefarious organization. The action in Gemini Man, while sometimes defying the laws of physics, is a blast to watch and allows us to turn off our brains. However, the movie never remembers to have us hit the switch back to “On.” The Gemini in me is split about my disappointment in the movie, but also realizing it’s a standard action flick that doesn’t strive for much more. C
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