Will Smith faces a game of clones in new movie
Lee’s latest pushes technological boundaries, but lacks philosophy
If you’ve ever wondered who would win in a fight — Deadshot from Suicide Squad or the Fresh Prince of Bel-air — then director Ang Lee has something for you.
The newest from the never-repeat filmmaker — past works include Life of Pi, Brokeback Mountain, Hulk and Sense and Sensibility — features Will Smith as Henry Brogan, a 51-year-old assassin looking to get out of the game. But it also stars Smith as Junior, a clone half his age, sent to kill — well, himself.
It’s a heady idea; if only we lived in an age when that twist could be sprung, Sixth Sense style, on an unsuspecting audience. But it’s there in all the promotional material, which also features Mary Elizabeth Winstead as a fellow operative sympathetic to Henry’s plight.
The film opens, James Bond style, with Henry wrapping up an assignment, which involves killing his target at long range as the man rides a high-speed train. It’s elegantly framed, and action fans will thrill to two additional set pieces — a motorcycle chase through the streets of Cartagena that the director cheekily refers to as “bike fu,” and a bone-crunching brawl in a series of catacombs. (Fortunately, the bones that get crunched don’t belong to anyone living.)
In between all the running and shooting and fighting, however, is where the story bogs down. The screenwriters, whose collective credits include Game of Thrones, Captain Phillips and The Hunger Games, create a deep philosophical forest with the premise. What mix of nature and nurture goes into making you what you are? Would a 25-years-later clone with a different upbringing naturally fall into the same patterns as you? And in the vein of Rian Johnson’s 2012 brain-bender Looper, what wisdom would you impart to your younger self — and would she or he even listen?
Alas, the film isn’t interested in mapping out these narrative woods. Henry convinces his clone that they are one and the same by rattling off a list of shared physical attributes — allergy to bee stings, dislike of cilantro — but also psychological parallels such as loneliness and nightmares. It’s far too glib; is he suggesting that “inability to get close to people” is a genetic thing? You don’t need much reflection to suggest depth in an action movie (see The Matrix), but you need more than cilantro.
One area Gemini Man does explore is the frontiers of filmmaking
technology. Lee’s Life of Pi, shot in 3D, won Oscars for its cinematography and visual effects (and directing, it should be noted). His next film, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, was shot at a high frame rate of 120 frames per second — the standard in movies is 24.
Gemini Man combines both these innovations, though it remains to be seen how widely they will be adopted; a Toronto promo screening with the director in attendance had to settle for a reduced rate of 60 fps on the available projector. Even at that, the new look takes some time to sink in — early scenes appeared both too “flat” — the common comparison is to a large TV screen — and too deep, with objects in the foreground seeming to float in front of what looked like a painted backdrop.
Add the fact that Smith is playing his younger self in a motion-capture performance that was used to create a digital double — built from the ground up as it were, rather than just de-aging the actor’s face — and there’s a lot of heavy technology in front of a rather lightweight story. Benedict Wong as a helpful buddy and Clive Owen as a hindering baddie are basically one-dimensional, which is perhaps for the best with all the other extra dimensions floating around.
The good news is that Smith & Smith have some effective onscreen chemistry, helped mightily by Winstead in a role that had me recalling that she also played John Mcclane’s daughter in a couple of Die Hard movies. And when Lee called “action” on the set, he clearly meant it. But he obviously hollered “cut” before the film could find its philosophical footing. Even the film’s tidy conclusion lacks introspection.