Movie Review: "Gemini Man" Is a (Bad) Sign of the Times

Here’s a technological achievement for you: a film that both sucks and blows.

Gemini Man is director Ang Lee’s latest attempt to blaze a new trail in cinematic storytelling, and his second to be shot digitally at an ultra-high frame rate (HFR). Traditionally, a movie fits 24 frames (or still images) into each second of film; Gemini Man—like Lee’s last effort, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk—squeezes in 120 frames per second (fps). Hey baby, that just means more movie to not love.

To the human eye, HFR makes everyone on screen seem like they’re moving at double speed thanks to the process known as motion smoothing; a technology so bad even Tom Cruise released a Public Service Announcement against it. The high frame rate—in this case, “plussed” by 3D—does impressively blur the line between the picture and real life itself, yet that also only makes the choreographed explosions look dinky, the fight scenes appear especially staged, and the performers feel less imposing. Films rely on a suspension of disbelief, and here’s Lee, devoting his considerable talents to cutting the suspension cable.

At least he’s only wasting a generic action script here. (The Ice Storm in HFR is a remaster no one needs.) With a screenplay 20 years in the tinkering—finally credited to David Benioff, Billy Ray and Darren Lemke—Gemini Man tells of retired assassin Henry Brogan (Will Smith) coming face to face with his younger, faster successor. But because this is 2019, and it’d be ingenuine to suggest there’s any 20-year-old out there more charismatic than the OG Fresh Prince, Gemini Man’s antagonist is a de-aged CGI Smith; a monument to hubris. I’m sure Lee would like us to ponder what humanity has wrought, but first, you’ve gotta reckon with what he’s wrought, and what he’s wrought is a lot.

Henry goes on the run with undercover agent Danny Zakarweski (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and old soldier pal Baron (Benedict Wong), while government spook Clay Varris (Clive Owen) keeps the Henry clone, Junior, on their tail. (The supporting cast do their best with what they’re given, which isn’t much.) Occasionally, the two Henrys fight, and when the lighting is dim enough, it’s not so bad. When they battle one another in pure daylight, with computer-generated Little Willy visible in all his unreal weirdness, you start to wonder why they didn’t just hire Michael B. Jordan, or any other human. "None of this s*** is necessary," Junior yells at Varris late in the piece. No s***.

Smith still has his indelible charisma, and doubling his presence isn’t the worst idea I’ve ever heard. But HFR is a fatal flaw, exposing cinema’s weaknesses, rather than burnishing them. It can’t be a coincidence that the two coolest shots are in slow-mo, during a climactic shootout in a convenience store. Sure, HFR indeed provides incredible depth, which would be appreciated if we were playing Where’s Wally, but by giving focus to the entire field of view, every element of the frame shares equal prominence. It’s like watching an entire feature through a split diopter. The effect reaches its unintentional comedic nadir during a bathhouse meeting between Henry and an informant in Budapest, where our attention keeps getting pulled away to the elderly male extras in jockeys who keep walking past in the background. Some things the eye was never meant to see in such fidelity. (Also, and don’t ask me to explain how, but the HFR makes the fake European accents sound worse too.)

I’m of course grateful that someone like Lee is out there attempting to push the field of cinema forward, even if it results in failures like Gemini Man. However, I feel the same way about these tests as I do about trials of new medication: call me when you’ve managed to keep them from sprouting lesions on my eyes.

1.5/5

In Australian cinemas 10 October, with advance screenings in select cinemas this weekend. Rated M for action violence and coarse language.