Gemini Man (Blu-ray)

Ahhh Ang Lee. This is one difficult filmmaker to pin down. I’ve watched his filmography in its entirety, so there is clearly a lot about him that is enticing to me. He’s most comfortable in smaller to medium scale character driven films, but has seemingly always been attracted to the blockbuster action epics and shiny new industry tech, to consistently mixed results. Gemini Man continues his career spanning trend of the large scale, long winded, emotionally inert spectacle. Will Smith is fine, and the deaging effects are at times pretty cool, though it does seem to suffer from a bit of too little, too late syndrome given Disney’s extensive and arguably more effective use of the technology. That, and the fact that Smith has barely aged in decades. The story is convoluted, yet not particularly intriguing. The revelations can be seen miles away, and we aren’t really given a reason to care about any of the proceedings. With the exception of a fantastic motorcycle chase scene towards the beginning of the film, there really isn’t much action to write home about. Everything from the performances, to the narrative momentum, pretty much everything about the experience was kind of lifeless. What did you all think of this one?