{"id":11433,"date":"2019-10-10T07:51:20","date_gmt":"2019-10-10T07:51:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=11433"},"modified":"2019-10-10T07:51:20","modified_gmt":"2019-10-10T07:51:20","slug":"gemini-man-review-older-assassin-will-smith-hunts-younger-assassin-will-smith-heart-to-hearts-ensue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2019\/10\/10\/gemini-man-review-older-assassin-will-smith-hunts-younger-assassin-will-smith-heart-to-hearts-ensue\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Gemini Man\u2019 review: Older assassin Will Smith hunts younger assassin Will Smith; heart-to-hearts ensue"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cGemini Man\u201d isn\u2019t bad, but two Will Smiths \u2014 when one of them\u2019s computer-animated \u2014 somehow feels like 66-75 percent of a real movie.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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I say this as a chronically late adapter with most things technological. I\u2019ll probably wake up one morning 20 years from now with an \u201caha!\u201d moment: \u201cYou know, that \u2018Gemini Man\u2019 \u2014 those computer-animation effects? Game-changer.” The 2019 me thinks, well, pretty good. No less, no more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The script has been knocking around Hollywood for two decades. Your enjoyment factor of the Ang Lee-directed picture will depend on how much you appreciate Lee\u2019s relative restraint and innate, humane taste in all sorts of genres. \u201cRestraint,\u201d \u201chumane\u201d and \u201ctaste\u201d don\u2019t spell massive commercial success as a rule with action films. A hot, rancid potato such as \u201cJoker\u201d is more of an inaction picture, interrupted by a few splashes of ultraviolence; \u201cGemini Man,\u201d lower-key and disinterested in crushing multiplex souls by the millions, will likely swim or sink on the narrative hook of Will Smith, killer elite, tracking Will Smith, killer elite, Gen Z division.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The set-up works well. One job away from a long-desired retirement after 70-plus killings, soul-weary, conscience-stricken Henry Brogan (Smith) takes aim at his latest government-sanctioned target, a bio-terrorist on board a bullet train in Belgium. Lee\u2019s handling of this sequence puts us in good hands; the PG-13 violence is more suggested than blasted.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Back home in Georgia, our assassin hero quickly learns he has been set up by his bosses; hung out to dry by his U.S. agency; and even the new employee down at the boat rental place is revealed to be a deep-state company woman, tasked with surveying Henry\u2019s moves. This quasi-adversary becomes an ally soon enough, as the trailers have already informed the world. She\u2019s played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, a key asset here, bringing a steady gaze and pleasing offhand air to familiar conspiracy doings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cGemini Man\u201d takes its title from a supersecret cloning project overseen by a steely Defense Intelligence Agency official (Clive Owen, who hasn\u2019t blinked on camera since \u201cChildren of Men\u201d). The Owen character has raised the cloned Henry, aka \u201cJunior,\u201d from childhood. He is fully computer-animated. This is a different technical and creative matter than digital age-erasure of the sort Samuel L. Jackson underwent in \u201cCaptain Marvel,\u201d or De Niro, Pesci and Pacino in much of the forthcoming \u201cThe Irishman.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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How does Will the Younger look? In close-up he looks right next door to \u201creal.\u201d I don\u2019t know why, exactly, but in medium or long shot the effect becomes less convincing, more evidently a digitally animated species. It\u2019s a matter of degrees: A showy action sequence on motorcycles careening through Cartagena, Colombia, hums along, but it\u2019s also fake times two, since little of the action we\u2019re seeing is happening for \u201creal.” May the better digital effect win.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Written by David Benioff, Billy Ray and Darren Lemke, \u201cGemini Man\u201d shares a preoccupation with another current title, \u201cAd Astra\u201d: hurting sons confronting workaholic, monomaniacal fathers. En route to a rather static climax, the action flits from the U.S. to Colombia and then to Budapest, Hungary (more assailants, more killing), and back home to Georgia. The debates concerning the ethics of cloning owe a considerable debt to any number of previous movies, and to a sheep named Dolly (name-checked in \u201cGemini Man\u201d). The animated realization of Will Smith, wrinkle-free version, may indeed point to the future of visual manipulation in Hollywood and around the world; Weta Digital, Peter Jackson\u2019s New Zealand company, knows what it\u2019s doing, and how to keep audiences a few yards up the hill from the uncanny valley. The script\u2019s just adequate, though; the movie\u2019s an easy watch, but the writing likewise feels like a digitally animated approximation of the real thing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cGemini Man\u201d<\/b> \u2014 2.5 stars<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cGemini Man\u201d isn\u2019t bad, but two Will Smiths \u2014 when one of them\u2019s computer-animated \u2014 somehow feels like 66-75 percent of a real movie. I say this as a chronically late adapter with most things technological. I\u2019ll probably wake up one morning 20 years from now with an \u201caha!\u201d moment: \u201cYou know, that \u2018Gemini Man\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":11434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[9951,1079,11110,6942,7556,262,8659,287,5858,8032,2761,6725,11538,7298,3577,2908,8182,8484,2264,8850,2490,5626,7356,10454,7550,12309,9683,10972,9029,5187,11973,5695,8443,6808,11259,10402,9030,7609,9616,6348,10943,3954,1869,5273,36,594],"class_list":["post-11433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-age","tag-aka","tag-asset","tag-belgium","tag-budapest","tag-bullet","tag-camera","tag-children","tag-colombia","tag-conspiracy","tag-de-niro","tag-debt","tag-digital","tag-fake","tag-future","tag-gemini-man","tag-gen-z","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-henry","tag-hollywood","tag-hungary","tag-jackson","tag-killing","tag-marvel","tag-men","tag-millions","tag-movie","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-one","tag-peter-jackson","tag-retirement","tag-shares","tag-shot","tag-sink","tag-success","tag-terrorist","tag-train","tag-us","tag-watch","tag-will","tag-will-smith","tag-woman","tag-world","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}