Gemini Man
Completists of the works of master director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Life of Pi) will need to see Gemini Man, along with any fans Will Smith has left, but everyone else can just move on with their lives. And if there’s still anyone bitter than suave Brit actor Clive Owen never got to play James Bond, they might want to skip this one and avoid seeing Owen — the designated villain here — try a Southern accent to deliver speeches about how clones could save the lives of soldiers with actual parents.
Parenting is paramount in the movies of Lee, who ends almost every film with the reconstitution of a nuclear or extended family. And believe it or not, in an action thriller about a hitman named Henry (Will Smith) targeted for assassination by the secret spy program he worked for, Lee manages to get to his favored endpoint and linger there before the final credits. (The lower quality of some of the effects in that coda suggests it was a reshoot, not part of the original script.) The plot machinations necessary to get the movie there might amuse fans of the director.
Mostly, though, this is a by-the-book Bourne-style caper movie, with chase scenes and shoot-outs and explosions and colorful international locations (Colombia, Hungary). There’s the younger woman with a man’s name (Danny, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who’s dragged into the mess, and the former colleagues who provide invaluable assistance, including a pilot named Baron (Benedict Wong). And there’s the usual covert rogue operation that killing our hero will supposedly cover up.
The shadow program here, as all the trailers make clear, is human cloning, and Henry is chased by Junior, a 23-year-old clone of his 51-year-old self, created and raised by former colleague Clay (Owen). Other than the screenplay’s few musings on parenting, though, the premise is something of a dead end: The novelty of computer-youth-ified Smith chasing himself wears off quickly and isn’t supplemented by any new twists on the rogue spy op plot or any fresh thoughts on… well, anything.
Along the way, there’s a terrific motorcycle chase through Cartagena, an over-long negotiation/fist fight in some Budapest catacombs, and a fiery final battle in a studio backlot that no one will believe is a small town in Georgia. Winstead and Wong are appealing sidekicks, buy Smith looks full-on weary most of the time, which tends to negate his chief star quality, which is his cockiness. On top of that, he’s saddled with lines like, “Deep down, it’s like my soul is hurt.” (Three separate writers share screenplay and story credits.)
What is Ang Lee doing directing this potboiler? It’s been seven years since Life of Pi and three since the financial and artistic disaster of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, from which Lee is evidently still recovering. It’s sad that he hasn’t taken the path of, say, Bill Condon, returning to lower-budget dramas to keep creating human-sized stories between blockbusters. Instead, he took a swing and a miss at a Will Smith action comeback — a movie that bears little imprint of his artistry save for that family-focused finale. It’s not terrible, but that’s a low bar for one of cinema’s established geniuses. Let’s hope this movie’s “aging star’s last job” theme is not indicative of Lee’s career.
Grade: C-plus. Rated PG-13. Playing at the AMC River Hills, Carolina Cinemark, and Regal Biltmore Grande.
(Photo: Ben Rothstein/Paramount Pictures)
