Gemini Man

"I have no idea how this movie ever got to be this bad because its been in development for so long and it had so much behind it, but it's easily one of my least favorite films of the whole year."

- Chris Stuckmann

Gemini Man is a 2019 American sci-fi action thriller film directed by Ang Lee and stars Will Smith, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Clive Owen, Benedict Wong and Ralph Brown, and written by David Benioff, Billy Ray and Darren Lemke.

The film was originally going to be released in 1997, but the film entered development hell due to Walt Disney Pictures, the original producers, not having advanced enough technology to produce the film, until in 2016, Skydance Media purchased the rights to the screenplay (which had been through several rewrites) from Disney and in October 2017, Ang Lee signed on to direct for Skydance with Paramount handling the distribution rights. Gemini Man premiered at the Zurich Film Festival on October 1, 2019 and was theatrically released in the United States by Paramount Pictures on October 11, 2019, in standard 3D, Dolby Cinema, 4DX, IMAX 3D, and ScreenX Formats, as well as in HFR (high frame rate) "3D+" on select screens (including 16 Dolby Cinema and 47 IMAX 3D with Laser screens worldwide).

Plot
Henry Brogan is an elite 51-year-old assassin who's ready to call it quits after completing his 72nd job. His plans get turned upside down when he becomes the target of a mysterious operative who can seemingly predict his every move. To his horror, Brogan soon learns that the man who's trying to kill him is a younger, faster, cloned version of himself.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The genres that the writers mainly work on are very different from each other, with none of them being known for focusing on this film's genre. This choice of writers ultimately caused very poor writing.
 * 2) Aside from the fact that Brogan is being hunted by a younger clone of himself, the plot itself is a generic one. Tons of other films have a plot similar, if not almost exactly the same, as this one.
 * 3) Most characters have little development. At times some characters are only there to advance the plot.
 * 4) Characters have a tendency to state the obvious, sometimes more than once.
 * 5) *The biggest example of this is when Danny Zakarewski tells Brogan that Junior is his clone, and then repeats this statement an unnecessary amount of times in the scene.
 * 6) Although the acting is decent, there are times where it feels like the actors want to have nothing to do with this film.
 * 7) The action scenes have a lot of laughably cheesy moments, especially the unnatural character movements in hand-to-hand fights.
 * 8) *One example of these laughable moments is when Junior launches his motorcycle at Brogan in hopes of hitting him.
 * 9) *The camera angles during the action scenes are also awkward.
 * 10) Most of the film is slow-paced and boring, especially the parts before Brogan meets Junior.
 * 11) One of the biggest selling points about the movie is the fact that the film uses de-aging effects, despite plenty of other films that released before this also using de-aging effects, and used them much better.
 * 12) The CGI is of questionable quality:
 * 13) *On some occasions the de-aging effects for Will Smith are poorly done, making it look really obvious and distracting.
 * 14) *Some scenes that use CGI feel very stiff as if they were from a video game.
 * 15) The audio has some problems where some character's voices sounded like they were coming from somewhere else.
 * 16) The movie is filmed in 120FPS (60FPS on 4K Blu-ray) instead of the standard 24FPS, meaning the motion is smoother than other films in theatres equipped for 120/60FPS playback. While it sounds like a good idea on paper, it leads to a fake and "uncanny valley" look, similar to what happened with The Hobbit trilogy. This problem does not show up in 24FPS versions of the film.
 * 17) Since the film happened to be in development hell for more than 20 years, there are already movies that have a similar concept but with better execution (for example: mh:greatestmovies:Looper).

Good Qualities

 * 1) As mentioned above, most of the actors give good performances, especially from Will Smith as always.
 * 2) The CGI effects are action packed and awesome looking, which makes for some pretty decent action scenes.
 * 3) *For the most part the de-aging effects for Will Smith are pretty good and convincing-looking.
 * 4) Even if the execution wasn't that good, the premise of a man being hunted by a younger clone of himself is interesting.
 * 5) Amazing direction, as expected from Ang Lee.
 * 6) Great musical score from Lorne Balfe.
 * 7) Aside from the high framerate, the cinematography is great.

Reception
Gemini Man was met with mixed to negative reception from critics for its script and plot, although the performances and Lorne Balfe's score were praised. The de-aging of Smith and the high frame-rate of 120 FPS also drew a mixed response, with some critics praising them as technical achievements, while others felt they were unconvincing. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 26%, with an average rating of 4.69/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Gemini Man's impressive visuals are supported by some strong performances, but this sci-fi thriller is fatally undermined by a frustratingly subpar story.". On Metacritic, the film has a metascore of 38/100, and a user score of 5.2/10. The average user rating on IMDb is a 5.7/10. On Letterboxd, the film received the score of 2.5/5.

Chris Stuckmann gave the film a D, questioning why the film is bad after considering the talent behind it. Angry Joe gave the film a 5/10, while his friends Alex and Other Joe gave the film a 4/10.

On the other hand, the audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes were more positive, with an approval rating of 83% with an average rating of 4.16/5 and a B+ on CinemaScore.

Box office
Gemini Man was a box-office bomb, grossed $173 million against a production budget of $138 million, with Paramount lost around $75 million dollars, and releasing too close to the highly anticipated mh:greatestmovies:Joker.

Videos
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Trivia

 * This was the first Skydance Media film to be co-produced by Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
 * During the DVD extras Will Smith and Jerry Bruckheimer are the only ones to correctly pronounce "Cartagena". It is "CartaHAYna", not "CartaHAYnya" "Cartagena" not "Cartageña" in Spanish.
 * For some reason, this film has no connection with the television series Gemini Man.
 * The Indian theatrical release received some verbal cuts (4 cuss words) before being given a U/A rating. An anti-smoking disclaimer was also added.