Gemini Man Leaves the Audience Bam Boozled to Believe in Getting a Fun Time Grade: D-

Source: IMDB

Gemini Man tells a story of a skilled sniper Henry (Will Smith) whom works for the government. Henry calls it quits after almost killing a young passenger on the train. The government doesn’t like that Henry is retiring, as they realize when those whom grow older, they become wiser so it’s time for a change! Instead of letting Henry enjoy his retirement days, the government instead tries to murder him... WITH HIS OWN CLONE!! When I watched the trailer, I thought to myself, “Ah they’re remaking Looper again.” I’m surprised nobody has made that comparison yet, I liked Looper. The Cinematography was fine, I watched this on IMAX and it’s literally the only way to watch this film, to capture the shots this film was going for. The Score was meh, I found it dull like the movie which will be getting into a second. Let’s talk about the glorious age of de-aging effect... At times it looks good, at times it looks noticeably bad. Sometimes when younger version of Henry talks, you can tell the words don’t align with the muscles around his face, it looked really bad. At the end it’s looks terrible as you can tell it’s fake. The cast of this film I found to be disappointing, theres not a single performance where I can tell a cast member wanted to be there working on this project. Will Smith playing an older version of himself and a younger version of himself was not good. Will Smith struggled immensely playing the younger cloned version of himself, at times he would sound like a emotionless robot which was appropriate for this character... But then he goes back to sounding like Henry, as your kind of confused in how Will Smith is trying to portray this character? It could be poor direction or it could be the fact Will Smith is just cashing a big check, as he doesn’t care how his performance turns out... I don’t know what to tell you. Henry our main protagonist t’was very very boring, he reminds me of a less exciting version of Will Smith’s previous character in I Robot. I found Henry not an engaging enough protagonist, a drained weary old man that just wasn’t exciting to watch, as I rather be on my phone. Clive Owen playing the bad guy was eh. I rather have Clive Owen have his English accent here because his American accent wasn’t that good, this is perhaps my least favorite Clive Owen performance in his entire career. Henry’s side kick character Mary Elizabeth Winstead was yet another boring character and another poor performance. It didn’t look like she didn’t want to be there either. I also felt the direction for the actors were weak. None of these performances flow naturally, as you forget your watching a movie and watching actors act. Just in certain scenes, you just can tell we’re in a room of actors just trying to act, it’s like watching them rehearse their lines and for a movie you want your mind to drift away from those thoughts. But because of the films poor direction, you find yourself not believing the world you’re watching, the characters you’re watching, as if you don’t believe in the movie, then it’s hard to become invested. Though I had low expectations for Gemini Man, I was hoping to watch a nice fun dumb action film at the least. I couldn’t even get that, this film is one of the most boring Sci-Fi Action films I’ve ever seen. The way this film is marketed, you expect an awesome time at the movies, which I believe would compare to I Robot. But no 85% of the film is characters in a room, delivering bad dialogue... I mean I was near falling asleep several times in this film. So no if you thought one second you were going to get a bad ass action flick, you’re going to be majorly disappointed like myself. I’ve heard from Chris Stuckmann that they’ve been wanting to make this film for years... Really? The script feels completely rushed. If you were to play a drinking game, of how many times you heard the word “You” being overly used in scenes.. You’d probably die. I remember in English class when we worked on essays in middle school, if we over use a word, there would be many red marks on our paper. This script in particular would never see the light in day if this was written in my English class, it gotten to a point where I was just annoyed with characters, explaining every damn thing we’ve already knew, but explained over again for the 5th time. With a bad story and bad dialogue, you’d figure hey at least we’re going to be saved by some dope action scenes... Your mistakenly wrong, because theres only like four actions scenes in this film, as one our of four being actually good and that would be the motorcycle chase scene. The way the camera shoots the rest of the action scenes, you honestly can’t make of what’s going on?! Poor choreography, poor film making, when the action consists of shooting guns it looks like crap... What the hell man?! I found it just laughable that Henry couldn’t tell the first time around, that he saw he was going up against a younger version of himself. Like you had the sniper closed in on him with a clear view, I know you’re in your 50’s, but come on it was so obvious it was a younger version of yourself. The villains motivation for wanting to create a clone I found just stupid. I’m just so disappointed that a big budgeted film, with all this advanced technology, and a story that wanted to be told for years as a result comes out like this. I should’ve had a blast in the theater, as here I am just completely pissed off by the level of garbage I’ve received. What happened Ang Lee?! Listen Hulk wasn’t that good, but least there was some fun and exciting moments and a film maker that looked like he had passion for the vision he was going for... This was just trash. Overall, Gemini Man is probably the biggest waste of time I’ve had in a theater all year long. I don’t recommend this film, watch Looper instead if you haven’t already. -Mitch Smietana