Gemini Man Movie Review 

Gemini Man was directed by Ang Lee and stars Will Smith, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Clive Owen, and Benedict Wong. It is a story of an expert sharpshooter. Who’s trying really hard to retire. When he realizes an assassin has been sent after him. Pretty soon he realizes this assassin is actually a younger version of himself.

With a star like Will Smith at least it’s going to be a really good production. We know that much at least. with Ang Lee behind the camera though. That’s where things get interesting. He is such a fantastic director. He has made phenomenal movies. “crouching tiger” and “hidden dragon” is one of the most visually sumptuous films I’ve ever seen.

Even though a lot of people have had things to say about his 2003 Holcomb movie. There are aspects of even that film that are quite beautiful. Even though overall it’s a mixed bag for me. What I’m getting at is that when he makes a movie, I get excited about it.

Life of pi was a visual breakthrough with that tiger what they’re able to do. And once again he is applying new technology to this film and that Will Smith is playing a younger version of himself. I guess it’s not new per-say we’ve seen things like this and captain Marvel with Samuel L. Jackson Clark Gregg this is something that’s becoming more popular now experimentation with the D aging.

Marvel’s done a pretty good job with that. In chapter 2 I thought was awful but technology-wise that’s not the only thing that Ang Lee is doing here. He also found this movie and 120 frames per second. Now a lot of reviews are probably going to talk about that. Because that’s very uncommon most movies as you know our 24 frames per second.

Actually shoot my videos at 24 frames as well. Even though most people do 30. I prefer to look at movies and you youtube videos with that frame rate and so that’s what I’ve always done. But my review is not going to cover that frame rate because the screening here in Cleveland was not only 2D. It was on 24 frames per second and I’m glad because a lot of people have mentioned that it’s very distracting and I was able to just purely think about theFilm.

The writing the acting the directing and not worry so much about the frame rate. Which to me would probably be really off-putting because I didn’t like it. And the hobbits. I’ve never loved that sort of hyper-stylized soap opera effect. You call it sometimes motions moving on a TV which I turn off I hate.

And I don’t want to watch a movie that even resembles that. Since I didn’t like it at 48 frames per second in The Hobbit. I can’t even imagine what 120 would look like. So let’s just talk about the movie. how is German? I think it’s really awful. Maybe the worst script of the year for a mainstream big-budget movie.

Yeah I mean I don’t really want to beat around the bush on this one. This script has been tossed around Hollywood for a long time. It’s been in development hell at 1 in time Mel Gibson was attached Clint Eastwood a lot of A-listers have tried to make this movie for a long time.

And the technology was never up to par for what they want to do. But now it is for the films getting made and it’s credited by a lot of screenwriters. More than likely because many rewrites have taken place. I highly doubt that that first script is even a shell of what I saw in this movie.

Billy Ray has the credit you may know him from shattered glass or breach. He’s a really terrific writer. David Binney off also has a credit to most people know from game of thrones. And nowadays most people know from the last season of game of thrones  For various reasons. And other credit goes to Darren Lemke not sure how to pronounce that name but he has credits on shows Sam goose bumps turbo Jack the giant slayer Shrek forever after amongst other things.

If you look at where all of those writers primarily work on. None of them work on similar projects. They all work on different types of films. Darren Lemke is more into animation and children’s family entertainments. Whereas Billy ray does a lot of political stuff intrigue espionage. And David Benioff is game of thrones. These are 3 writers that that couldn’t be more from separate sides of the spectrum. Maybe that could make for a really cool screen play or could make for the most atrocious and jumbled horribly written screenplay that I’ve heard and seen on a screen this year .

Oftentimes exposition is something that is pinpointed as a problem with screenplays. Every screenplay needs some. It’s a necessity. You have to have a little every here and there. “Hi what’s your name” “my name’s Chris” “what’s your name” “my name is Ben” cool now we know everyone’s names. Stuff like that’s in every movie but the bad thing in this movie is insulting. There is an entire scene in which Mary Elizabeth Winstead has to tell older Will Smith that younger Will Smith is definitely him.

And she repeats “he is you” “No, he is you” “No, his DNA is a direct match with you” “you don’t understand he is you” like 18 times blew my mind. In the trailer, even you can see one of these scenes where young Will Smith is talking about how he’s a clone. Let me get this straight I’m a clone right made from that other guy’s body because you kind of look like me.  Just wanna make sure I’m a clone and you made me, Right. You made a person from another person.

And then you sent me to kill that person right. I just want to make sure that I’m clear on this. The on the screenplay the film meanders for quite a bit in the early minutes. The scenes leading up to him discovering his younger self are boring. Really boring. Because most actors in the movie don’t even seem remotely invested and I don’t understand how that’s even possible. I can’t comment on the frame rate but I can comment on the de-aging technology.

There are scenes where it’s jaw-droppingly perfect. Most of those scenes are in the dark. There’s some sequences like an underground sewer system. And those look really good. Like you can see the pores in the sweats and it’s just fantastic. But there’s a scene in broad daylight with young Will Smith that is laughable. I mean it’s shockingly obviously apparent that it’s C. GI and there isn’t an ounce of me that believes it. I don’t understand. How it was even approved to be in the final draft, but all of this could at least be salvaged.

If the action was entertaining and visceral. The action in the movie is at times passable. There’s a pretty great motorcycle chase. That ends in absurdity but for like 2 minutes it was awesome. But then young will Smith’s starts boxing with his motorcycle on 2 older Will Smith. You using his motorcycle like a boxing glove. Sounds pretty cool I guess and now you want to see it probably. But man was that funny in the theater.

But then in fight scenes or gun shootouts, he for some reason keeps the camera really tight the whole time. This was really strange to me again. I  must reference crouching tiger hidden dragon. That is as close to perfect as some movies can get that is such a phenomenal film and I have no idea how the same person directed this movie “Gemini Man”. This feels like a committee project. That has been shoved through a shredder and then reassembled with tape.

But I’ll tell you this movie “Gemini Man” is going to find an audience of people who like it and some people probably think I’m being too harsh on the movie and that’s okay. But in my opinion this is sort of like the transformers 2 paradox. Where when I first saw that movie with a lot of my friends many of them thought it was really awesome. And over the years they started to hate the movie.

A movie can be visually compelling filled with A list stars and a great production behind it everything looks really cool. And it can make you not realize how truly bad the script is. The badness of this movie “Gemini Man” is very well hidden in the incredible cast and directing talent. I have no idea how this movie ever got to be this bad because it’s been in development for so long it had so much behind it, but it’s easily one of my least favorite films of the whole year.

I’m gonna give Gemini Man a D. Guys if you do end up seeing the film I’m curious to know what you thought of it. Thank you so much as always for reading my review for Gemini Man movie. See you next time with another Movie review.