There are so many entry-points to thinking of the recent action-thriller “Gemini Man”, that’s it’s hard to decide where exactly to start: With the fact that it has only recouped $120 million since it premiered worldwide two weeks ago despite a $130 million budget? That it’s been in development hell since 1997, when it was pitched as project for Tony Scott to direct? That it’s yet another attempt by legendary filmmaker Ang Lee to popularise the notorious high frame-rate technology that doesn’t seem likely to ever become as widespread as he wants it to be? Or, how about with the fact that the film makes ample use of computer de-aging technology, delivering a story where 51-year-old assassin Henry Brogan must face off against a 25-year-old version of himself? That boilerplate plot is not exactly a fresh one. In fact, it’s incredibly familiar. Except, in “Gemini Man” Will Smith has the honour of playing both versions of himself as Henry must fight himself to the death.
The plot – with the battle of these two Wills – is a good place to start because it immediately places “Gemini Man” as a film that seems stuck in the past in some ways, but that’s very much of 2019. And the unfortunate thing about this is that this mostly pleasant film is never really able to reconcile the unceasing tension between its conflicting selves. It’s why, despite all the ways that the film front-loads thematic conversations over visual set-pieces, the very first thing you’re likely to hear when “Gemini Man” comes up is how it looks. In 2016, Ang Lee’s “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” utilised a 120 frames per second technology, five times faster than the typical frame-rate in Hollywood films of 24 frames per second.
Despite the critical revulsion that met that film, Lee uses the same technology in “Gemini Man” and in layman’s terms it makes the film’s 3D technology appear smoother and more visceral, but also weirdly so real that it seems slightly unreal. This isn’t exactly a detriment in “Gemini Man”, to be fair. In fact, for all the hullabaloo from Lee’s worst critics, “Gemini Man” looks mostly good. The best media descriptor for exactly how the visual aspects of the film pays off is that it looks a videogame. In some cases, this makes for a particularly compelling, if not always finessed, element of closeness. There’s an early scene with a very throwaway shot of a train making a turn on a track that actually made me gasp at how propulsive it seems, and there’s a later, longer sequence with someone being pulled from water that’s so visually sharp that it argues best for the visual language of “Gemini Man”. In fact, for the most part, the film is quite clear about how it wants to use action-sequences, with the best being an extended motorcycle sequence that’s compelling and surprising for the way it keeps teetering close to dangerousness. It’s the first complete action sequence of the film, and it works both because of the visual care as well as for the way – still early in the film’s narrative – the audience isn’t quite sure of future developments, so every moment fees uncertain. This scene, like a later one shot mostly in darkness, is a good reminder that Lee, at his best, is a master of expert direction, even if this isn’t quite at the “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” level, emotionally or culturally.
The thing about it, though, is even when this frame-rate technology works to give the action sequences an element of visual weirdness, “Gemini Man” is not a film that’s really rooted in action. Not completely, and not consistently. Much of the film is just about people sitting (or standing) around talking – in fact, the film means to hit home its themes with a dependence on dialogue that seems at odds with a film which is marketed at this behemoth of spectacle. And in these moments, it’s not that the visual style doesn’t work but more that the film seems to gain little from it. And it’s probably the most troubling aspect of a film like this which Lee seems to have put some effort and energy into. The film seems to be mulling reasons to support its own unwieldly technology.
Yet, it’s hard for me to categorise “Gemini Man” as anything resembling failure in any capacity. Not of technology. Of story. Or merit. This isn’t a hollow husk of tech with nothing to say or engage with. In fact, even if one views “Gemini Man” through the most ungenerous lens, as a film whose reach cannot exceed its grasp, it’s almost immediately compelling for the way the film seems to be engaging in its own sort of self-reflexive critique. It’s a film at war with itself, just as its themes are about people battling their worst and best impulses. There is the choice of actor – Smith literally interrogating his legacy as action state/every-man/aging former trenchant hero; then Lee , a director almost viscerally opposed to the idea of auteurism, instead pursuing every genre with equal panache; and a film that seems to be criticising the same type of ossifying youth worshipping that is made possible by tech that seems to be doing the same thing.
Even on a thematic level, the film’s simple story-arc has much to engage with, especially when it goes to such unusual places. The film is, for example, unusually toothless on race and sexuality in ways that seem bizarre for a film that all but courts the exigences of both. Smith is the only black character in the film, his clone a product of a white-male figure whose praise of the Henry and his clone seem tied up in what skirts dangerously close to both a homoerotic sort of envy, and race fetishisation that the film seems afraid to confront.
I’ll say for this for the film: by the time the last showdown between villain and heroes occurs, I didn’t even realise the film had ended. In this way it probably speaks to how quickly it all develops but less generously there’s a deficiency in the way the film seems to flirt with so many ethical and thematic possibilities but ends before we really interrogate any of them. What we’re left with is a sort of action-lark with Smith in good form, and a general thematic warmth and hopefulness that seems a bit naïve but is charming despite itself.
“Gemini Man” is currently playing at Caribbean Cinemas Guyana and MovieTowne Guyana.
