GEMINI MAN
ACTION THRILLER
WILL SMITH GOES head to head with himself in a slickly made but misfiring action thriller about an ageing assassin whose younger clone is trying to kill him.
Smith’s 51-year-old hero,
Henry Brogan, has been the US government’s top trigger-man for years and has 72 kills to his name. Now, he wants to retire, but the decision doesn’t go down well with his superiors, who send a squad of dark ops types to eliminate him. Henry goes on the run, accompanied by Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s renegade government agent.
Unfortunately, Henry’s shadowy nemesis, Clay Verris (Clive Owen), has a further ace up his sleeve – Henry’s 23-year-old clone, Junior – played by a digitally de-aged Smith.
Gemini Man’s high-concept premise was originally dreamed up in 1997, with Tony Scott slated to direct Harrison Ford in the lead. Since then, a slew of other directors and stars have been in the frame, with Life of Pi director Ang Lee finally completing the project.
Sadly, the end result is desperately disappointing. The globetrotting plot does throw up some exciting set-piece scenes, but the story has more holes than a string vest and, for all the digital wizardry involved, there’s something decidedly odd-looking and creepy about the younger Smith. 2019, 12, 117MIN
THREE MOB WIVES (Elisabeth Moss, Melissa Mccarthy and Tiffany Haddish) take matters into their own hands when their Irish Mafia husbands get sent to prison in this crime thriller set in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen in 1978.
The presence of comedy queens Mccarthy and Haddish may hint at laughs in store, but this comic-book adaptation is surprisingly dull. 2019, 15, 103MIN
WILL SMITH proves a danger to himselfé