’Gemini Man’ is a really bad movie. In fact, it’s the worst film to have come out this year.
Here’s an example of a piece of dialogue in the film:
“I’ve never had someone trying to kill me,” said Danny Zakarweski, an experienced government agent played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead. (Which agency, I forgot, but probably the DIA.)
“The important thing is that they didn’t,” said world-class assassin Henry Brogan played by Will Smith.
But if the dialogue is from the gutter, the script is abysmal and probably written by a computer called Darren Lemke.
This would be funny unless you were aware that one of the main characters in the film is in fact generated by a computer, a character with young Will Smith’s face. He moves like a cheetah and kicks like Jet Li and cries like the real Will Smith whose tears, the press was informed before the screening, were real tears of Mr. Smith who proudly shed them somewhere in the studio so that they could be later animated on Junior’s face. Yes, Will Smith’s clone is called Junior.
In ‘Gemini Man’ the characters are as believable as the stars of the worst soap opera on afternoon TV. Their mood swings turn this sci-fi drama into an unintentional comedy.
Also one of the big problems of the film is the way it’s being filmed. While I was excited about the new 3D+ technology that with a frame rate of 60 frames per second should give the viewer an amplified and more immersive 3D experience, it turns out that at least in the hands of the cinematographer Dion Beebee we got to experience scenes that resembled an oversharp home video. (The frame rate is more than double the traditional movie frame rate. It’s a brand new technology in Finland that only a few cinemas are able to implement currently.)
All these major flaws pose major questions.
For example, how can the critically acclaimed director Ang Lee, who has brought us great films like Life of Pi (2012) and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), bring us such garbage? Or, how can Mr. Beebee, who has brought us a stunning play of shadow and light in a film like Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), shoot scenes where the light is dull and the bokeh looks like something out of a magazine with a 3D cover?
My guess: It’s the technology.
These great minds of film with new toys in their hands simply forgot the essence of good filmmaking.
After all, we can’t expect that a computer-generated half villain with an actor’s face can move an audience, even if the tears were real.
And forget the frame rate.
At least for now.
‘Gemini Man’ premieres in cinemas October 11.
