GEMINI MAN: A Bland Action Clone

Here is a film that is loaded up with enough gimmicks to garner an eyeball or two. Will Smith has been de-aged in the picture to look more like he is in his 20s than his 50s. Special screenings will feature an exceptionally high frame rate. But tear down all the ornaments and you’ll find that Gemini Man is a mere husk of a thriller.

It was easy for me; my screening was at the regular frame rate and I’ve seen enough de-aged visual effects wonderment to not be so won over at how close Hollywood is coming to be The Congress.

Smith vs. Smith

Will Smith, having recently played the eccentric Genie of Aladdin, now goes back to his snoozing somber stance as an action hero. He plays Henry Brogan, a government assassin who is the most expert shot on the planet, able to hit a target on a fast-moving train from a great distance. Henry is both humble in how he admits he’s running on luck and tortured as the kills haunt him. We know this not from any telling scene of quiet unease but outright stating these feelings. I suppose when a film is so bereft of emotion, character building has to happen some way.

Henry is thinking about retiring but, of course, retirement never works out in these kinds of movies. He is informed that the previous targets he’d been assassinating were part of a secret project. The secret American agency doesn’t tell Henry about this project and the fact he even knows about it means he needs to be taken out.

But who can kill the greatest assassin on the planet? Simple; a clone of the greatest assassin. Named Junior, the clone will hunt down Henry across the globe as our hero attempts to learn the truth. Henry will also have to either come to terms with his past or try to rectify it through Junior.

Junior himself is a perfect representation of this film. Built entirely with computer graphics, the young assassin was raised from his test-tube birth to be the ultimate warrior. He’s sadly a product of the perfect soldier project to recreate Henry without all of the emotional attachment.

The film itself had been in development hell for almost as long as Junior has been alive. The film was held up for many years because the computer animation was still stuck in the uncanny valley. But now we have the technology and there are numerous examples of de-aged actors being believable through visual effects.

A Faceful of Visual Effects

But what has all that tech led to? A flat, lifeless character that feels little emotion and rarely breaks from a blank stare. Every close up with Junior or any shot where Henry and Junior occupy the same scene look believable, sure, but to what end. There’s a shot where Junior is in the foreground and Henry in the background. It’s a very long shot where we can look at all the detail but it carries a surreal nature in how Junior seems to be struggling not to emote in an intense scene. Perhaps his stillness is out of fear, that if he moves too much or showcases too many expressions the illusion will be broken.

And yet there are plenty of scenes that break the illusion, namely any action sequence. Junior is not only trained to reflect Henry’s skill with a gun but be an enhanced soldier with beefed-up fighting skills. It’s a little hard to view Junior as a real young Will Smith when he is flipping off roofs like a mutant and using a motorcycle to perform kung-fu.

The government agency may give the excuse that Junior’s development was for an emotion-free operative but there’s no way kicking people with a motorcycle was a side-feature. Then again, Ang Lee’s direction relies on quite a lot of side-features to carry this thriller that lacks in humanity, an especially concerning flaw for a film about questioning the worth of a human being.

A Snooze of a Thriller

Junior is an unfortunate soul because he’s been stripped of emotion in a story that is already a snooze of robotic performances. Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays another agent working alongside Smith as a mildly plucky companion. She tags along to be captured by Junior and at one point being forced to strip in front of the clone as he searches for guns and wires. There’s not a whiff of sexual tension but a certain surreal nature to how the previous scene has 51-year-old Smith stating the 34-year-old Winstead is too young for him but perfect for 25-year-old Smith.

Also present in the film is Clive Owen as the project director who functions out of both military idealism and family love. But with Owen struggling to keep himself cold and devoid of accent, he’ll also have to settle for outright stating his feelings rather than showing them. The one beacon of charisma in this whole adventure is Benedict Wong as the chipper pilot partner of Henry. Wong has such an effortless charm but within this script he’s reduced to mere one-liners.

Gemini Man: Conclusion

Gemini Man smears a lot of fancy tech all over an empty and tiresome thriller. Take away all the glamour of a CGI Will Smith and a super-charged frame rate and there’s not a lot to talk about in a film that ambles through a story we’ve heard before. All the technology in the world can’t excuse a lifeless picture, where the only moment of that familiar Smith charm comes only briefly in the finale. And even by that one point, I kept wondering who slipped this film a hefty dose of tranquilizers. A film with a motorcycle-wielding CGI Will Smith shouldn’t be boring but here we are.

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