Taiwanese director Ang Lee has had a very interesting career, having achieved both critical and commercial success over the years. He made his debut with 1991’s Pushing Hands, which started what’s been referred to as his “Father Knows Best” trilogy. This trilogy continued with 1993’s The Wedding Banquet and 1994’s Eat Drink Man Woman, and all three were considered hits. Lee made his debut in Hollywood with 1995’s Sense and Sensibility, which received seven Oscar nominations and won one. Unfortunately, his next follow-ups, 1997’s The Ice Storm and 1999’s Ride with the Devil, though critically praised, flopped financially. Things turned around with 2000’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, 2003’s Hulk, 2005’s Brokeback Mountain, and 2012’s Life of Pi. Many of these achieved financial success, and some received critical acclaim, earning several Oscar nominations and winning two for directing. 2019 sees the release of Ang Lee’s newest film, Gemini Man.
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Henry Brogan (Will Smith) is an aging government assassin who plans on retiring after several years of active service. While meeting up with an old friend, Jack (Douglas Hope), he’s informed that his latest target was an innocent man. Jack tells Henry where to find the informant, but is subsequently killed by their former agency, making Henry a target. Along the way, Henry befriends a fellow agent, Danny Zakarweski (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and she’s now marked as a target. With some help from Henry’s friend Baron (Benedict Wong), they escape and travel to Budapest to meet the informant. Meanwhile, Clay Varris (Clive Owen), director of a black-ops unit called “Gemini”, sends out his top assassin to eliminate Henry. In a twist, Danny discovers that the assassin sent after Henry is a younger clone of him. It’s up to Henry and crew to stop Clay and take out Henry’s clone.
When I first saw the trailer for Gemini Man, I was interested but couldn’t shake the feeling something wasn’t right. Turns out I was right as Gemini Man is one of the most forgettable and derivative movies I’ve seen lately. To get into the positives first, the cast is decent, all of whom do what they can be considering the material. The action sequences are decently staged, for the most part, particularly a motorcycle chase and a shootout later on. The CGI used to create the younger Will Smith looks passable, especially during scenes either in darkness or at night. Given Ang Lee’s talent as a filmmaker, the film looks good and there’s nothing awful on a technical level here. So, if you’re looking purely for action, you could do worse, at least compared to, say, Michael Bay’s Transformers films. Unfortunately, the film has too many shortcomings to recommend it.
As I alluded to earlier, the film is very poorly written and the plot is derivative of much better films. The script was initially written in the late ’90s, and you can tell, especially given the basic setup. It’s a very basic story involving spies, government betrayals, clones, and people on the run, all done much better before. Going back to the writing, there is so much exposition that just drags on, and much of the dialogue is repeated. For instance, there are several instances where characters discuss how the younger assassin is a clone and how it works. It’s repeated so much that it feels like the writers assume the audience can’t grasp the concept of a clone. Honestly, the only things the movie has going for it are its cast and its above-average CGI and action scenes. Overall, Gemini Man is a poor imitation of better action films.
