The match everyone wanted to see: It’s Aladdin vs. The Fresh Prince! A Will Smith vs. Will Smith mono e mono of epic proportions, directed by the Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon director! When Paramount Pictures figured out they could get Will Smith and Ang Lee to agree to participate in this film, they created a great movie story for them to be in. Except they forgot to write the screenplay until the day before shooting. And with that, you get Gemini Man.
Smith plays Henry Brogan, a master sniper/assassin approaching his retirement from military work. After a few days on a beachside boating community, Henry senses someone is coming to kill him. He flees with Danny (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who’s been hired to spy on Henry. The pair suspect private contractor and Henry’s ex military vet associate, Clay Verris (Clive Owen). Verris, desperate to get Henry out of the picture, sends his favorite assassin, Junior (Also Will Smith) to go after Henry. The picture becomes much more muddy when both realize there’s um, they both look identical to each other.
Even though this is not his garbage script, Ang Lee does his best to save Gemini Man. He pushes CGI deaging another few steps forward. There are only a few times where its clear Fresh Prince Will Smith is not a real person. Small feat for a guy who did a 2 hour movie of a tiger on a boat. But Ang Lee did more than that. The practical effects keep Gemini fan really fun. There’s some great assassin action, be it distance sniping, or crazy martial arts ballet fighting. There’s also fun practical explosions that don’t happen too often, like car flips or the disintegration of a convenient store. If you happen to see this movie in 3D+ as well, Gemini Man also pops in 3D unlike other films I have seen in the third dimension, a testament to Lee’s talent. I usually give credit to an actor for making a bad movie watchable, but Ang Lee is the first director I can credit with that feat.
Unfortunately, it looks like Gemini Man hired the David Benioff from Game of Thrones’s last season instead of the David Benioff of the first 6 seasons. Gemini Man comes so close: the premise is so easy to sell, and filled with all sorts of fascinating questions: do biological or environmental factors have more effect on raising someone? What happens when we give defense contractors the rights to genetic information?, for example. However, this screenplay opts for one big twist that you see coming a mile away, and is used in the selling of the film. There’s so many chances for even more clever twists that I think I said out loud in the theater, only to be confused at the screenplay’s laziness. And all those questions raised by this story? They actually spoken out loud, and then immediately dismissed without any thought or discussion on the subject, pretty outwardly condescending to the audience, assuming they’re only their to watch Will Smith fight himself.
One thing buzzing around my head when I watch a film is if that film is going to be taught in a university someday. Gemini Man will be taught to aspiring film directors praising Ang Lee’s techniques and efforts. It will also be taught to future movie writers as a perfect example of how to waste a good movie premise. Maybe it would have been better if Will Smith was on a yacht with a tiger…