Gemini Man
Director: Ang Lee
Writer: David Benioff, Billy Ray, Darren Lemke
Cast: Will Smith, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Clive Owen, Benedict Wong, Douglas Hodge, Ralph Brown, Linda Emond, Ilia Volok, E.J. Bonilla
Seen on: 16.10.2019

Plot:
Henry (Will Smith) can look back on a very successful career as a hitman and has decided to call it a day. But his plans to simply retire are crossed when he receives the information that his last kill, and who knows how many, may not have been quite as purely motivated as Henry thought. As Henry starts to question his jobs, he quickly becomes a target himself. And who better to hunt a seasoned assassin than a younger, cloned version of him?

Gemini Man is not an awesome film, it’s a little too clichéd and predictable. But I have definitely seen much worse.

When I saw the trailer for the movie, my first thought was that they barely need to de-age Will Smith so he can play a 30 years younger version of himself. Watching the film in its entirey, things were a little different and the technology to de-age him wasn’t quite as flawless as I thought it would be. At times the film does descend into the uncanny valley. Plus, sometimes the movements themselves looked slightly accelerated – but I don’t think that has anything to do with the de-aging and everything with HFR.

Despite those technical issues, I did like the action scenes – they weren’t bad at all. And that the entire film takes place in one breathtaking location after the other is definitely not a drawback (I guess I really have to visit Georgia at some point).

I was pleasantly surprised that they didn’t push a romance angle between Henry (Will Smith) and Dani (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). The age difference between those two would have made that uncomfortable, but unfortunately not unusual by Hollywood standards. And I liked that we got a fresh daddy issues version here – where a man basically has to become his own father. As someone who is very tired of all the daddy issues everywhere, this attempt to make them into something new is definitely appreciated.

But everything ascribed to DNA here really didn’t sit right with me. People should think long and hard about their assumptions about how humans work, really. Genereally, the plot was absolutely the weakest part of the film and didn’t make much sense if you think about it. And yet, I have definitely seen (a lot) worse than this film. At the very least, it’s entertaining.

Summarizing: good enough.