Director
Ang Lee

Starring
Will Smith, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Clive Owen, Will Smith

Have you wondered what it would be like to watch an entire film through your childhood View-Master? Well wonder no more! Ang Lee has delivered just that in Gemini Man. When I heard of an action movie directed by the two-time Academy Award winner Lee, starring Will Smith playing opposite himself, I thought, ‘how amazing is this going to be?’. Then I heard it was filmed in 3D+, a super crisp 120 frames per second format, which is more than twice what a traditional film is capable of, and supposedly a next level, more immersive version of the 3D experience. WOAH! Genuine excitement.  Ah how I wish I could go back to that time, it was a simpler time, a purer time, one where all my dreams hadn’t been shattered. For something that undoubtedly cost a lot of money to produce, the final product looks remarkably tacky. Unfortunately, there’s something worse than watching this movie in 3D+, and that’s watching it in a regular viewing.

Gemini Man is about an international assassin (Smith) who is hunted by his own clone (a partly dodgy CGI job of a young Smith). There are some side characters thrown in, including the mandatory female that the hero can protect (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and a bad guy (Clive Owen) for good measure. You might think this is a lazy synopsis, but it’s just that the storyline is so formulaic and the screenplay so terrible that there isn’t much more to add. The banality of the film continues into the acting performances, which would have been funny if you thought they were trying to be. At times I thought I was watching Tommy Wiseau’s The Room such was the atrociousness of the acting displayed. It was apparent that Ang Lee was too focused on what was being delivered from a technical standpoint, and he thought that would be enough to carry the rest of the film. That’s the only explanation as to how the man responsible for directing some of finest acting performances (think Brokeback Mountain) could also be behind this abortion of a film.

Due to the terrible script and Lee’s over reliance on the 3D+ technology to keep you interested, it means that if you’re not watching for the technology factor alone, you’re not actually left with much of a film at all, and as a result, this isn’t going to be a film that translates well outside of the cinema. As for the technology itself, perhaps it’s an acquired taste. I’ll admit I’m not much of a fan of films that break too far from convention, and I like my films to look like films. I don’t need to be ‘immersed’ in 3D, because if a film is any good, it will immerse you in its story anyway. But I also think if you are going to break from convention, it should add something of value to the experience, not detract from it. Not only did the 3D+ lead to flaws in the storytelling, but it also made several scenes incomprehensible. With such fast-moving frames, it was almost impossible to make sense of what was happening in a lot of the action shots.

The CGI for the most part was ok, but it was the finer details that let it down. De-ageing technology has come a long way in films recently. Captain Marvel blew me away with a young Samuel L. Jackson and Clark Gregg. But Smith’s younger CGI clone almost robotic instead of computer generated. The repetition of eye movements and the speed at which this supposed human clone can move make you well aware that you’re not watching the actor.

When all is said and done, Gemini Man is really only going to appeal for its gimmick factor, and much like the inspired View-Master, after a few minutes, the novelty really does wear off.

0.5 Stars

Moviedoc thanks Paramount Pictures for the invite to the screening of this film.

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