GEMINI MAN (2019) FILM REVIEW

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12A, 117 Mins

High-framed, digitally regressive thriller is an annoyingly distracting experience.

"You won't like me when I'm Ang Lee" was the best joke to come out of the film-maker's profoundly unincredible 'Hulk' (2003).  Besides being about that film's lack of crashy smashy big green monster material, it's also a sobering statement on the decline of this director from arthouse darling to digitally regressive old fart.

The man responsible for low-budget Taiwanese gems like 'The Wedding Banquet' (1993) and 'Eat Drink Man Women' (1994) has, in recent years, fallen victim to commercial gimmicks spurred on by the $690 million success of 3D high seas odyssey 'Life of Pi' (2012). The Box Office bombing of 'Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk' (2017) should have been enough of an indiction that audiences have no stomach for 120 fps, but Mr. Lee refuses to listen to such woes and thus now we have 'Gemini Man' (2019). A film so obsessed with technological advancements that it risks pulling us backwards 200 years before the birth of cinema itself.

The story centres around Will Smith in a double role (or is it?) of a hitman stalked by a younger clone of himself and yet any potentially interesting Sci-Fi ideas about human cloning are obliterated by the annoying distraction of the supposedly state-of the-art technology. For one thing, the high frame rate renders any of use CGI green screen and any physical stunts stunt-double stuff; envisioning movie sets that look like sketchy behind-the-scenes collections of props.

Most irksome, though, is Lee's insistence on a digital recreation of the young Smith looking way past his sell-by date. Want to knownthe craziest concept? This deepfake copy's badger-passing-wind expressions  actually out-act the real Smithie off screen. The once ludicrously likeable actor can add this to 'After Earth' (2013), 'Suicide Squad' (2016) and 'Collateral Beauty' (2017) as another lumpen spoonful of misery pudding.

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