Gemini Man review – Ang Lee goes full style over substance

Like James Cameron and Robert Zemeckis, Taiwanese-born filmmaker Ang Lee wants to go down in history as a trailblazer of advanced cinematic technology. Attempts to cement himself in the pantheon of digital dazzlers has so far resulted in a mixed bag, though: Life of Pi, with its entirely fake but utterly convincing photorealistic tiger, felt like a game-changer; Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, on the other hand, was unfathomable and indescribable in the worst possible way. You can’t help but give him credit for trying: even when the films don’t quite work, they’re still interesting to break down and dissect. Gemini Man, Lee’s latest boundary-pushing effort, falls somewhere in-between his previous attempts to define the future of digital cinema. It does some very technically amazing things whilst also doing some very terrible narrative things. We might get two Will Smiths, but we get one dud of a script.

Because Gemini Man‘s story is so slight that at no point does it ever actually feel like there is one. It’s the sort of film that, even with the sound turned off, you’re still able to follow, beat by beat – a feature-length TV tech demo. Will Smith stars as Henry Brogan, the world’s best assassin who – wait for it – has decided to retire. It’s not going to be that easy, of course, because this is a movie, and also because an evil government agency led by a very miscast Clive Owen has stolen his DNA and used it to clone him. It’s this clone, at half Henry’s age, who’s sent to kill him, driving a stupid premise that exists purely so Lee can work some serious motion-capture magic on his star.

The biggest draw here, then, isn’t – as with Billy Lynn – based around the high frame rate (if you could ever count that as a draw), but the fact that there is a Fresh Prince-era incarnation of Will Smith doing battle with the 50-year-old Smith of now. To Lee’s credit, it’s an effect that – for the most part – convinces, though at points, in those moments where you brain desperately scrambles to figure out what’s not quite right with the deeply fake imagery, it’s a little disturbing, too. Bizarrely (or not bizarrely?), Smith has no chemistry with himself, though he doesn’t have any with Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s fellow hitman either, who turns up here and does her best with an underwritten character.

As for Gemini Man‘s sort-of-headache-inducing high frame rate (Lee shot this in 120 frames per second, which barely any cinemas are equipped to play), audiences are bound to find it most jarring during the scenes where characters stand around talking in bland-looking rooms (for such a plotless film, there is so much talking). Rendered with razor-sharp clarity, it’s never anything but odd to watch as you’re reminded that these are actors stood on movie sets, pretending to be other people. Action scenes fare a lot better, and at times – like during an explosive Crouching Tiger-esque shoot-out across rooftops that segues nicely into a thrilling, inventive motorcycle chase – you begin to understand, if only for a moment, how a higher frame rate can actually enhance an action scene.

But this script. It’s wholly apparent that Gemini Man‘s screenplay has been floating about since the mid-90s, littered as it is with terrible one-liners, awful banter, and characters with names like “Clay Varris.” Lee, an existentialist at heart, is too focused on the visuals to bother with even basic sci-fi questions about what it is that makes us human. Sure, if you pretend hard enough, Gemini Man works as a meta-statement on the inevitable future of movies, in which film stars are replaced with digital versions of themselves. But that feels like giving this paper-thin action flick too much credit.

Lee shows no sign of slowing his campaign to redefine the future of the medium. What he must do now, though, is find a way to match the technology with the dramatic weight of his Sense and Sensibility or Brokeback Mountain. There is something here – something equally terrifying and remarkable – but these digital experiments need to be more than just presentations: they need to bear the hallmarks of flesh and blood cinema.

★★☆☆☆

By: Tom Barnard

Get Gemini Man showtimes in London.