Gemini Man

While aiming to retire from his life as the nation’s most effective sniper assassin, Henry Brogan (Will Smith) gets a tip that his final kill wasn’t politically “clean.” Now a hunted man Brogan will face his former commander, Clay Verris (Clive Owen), head of the Gemini black ops group. But Verris has a trick of his own, a cloned youthful version of Brogan to do his bidding– Facing off with himself Brogan Sr. will have to dig deep within himself to stop Jr.. Directed by Ang Lee and Written by a small army of writers, this technological marvel of a film is being touted as the next advance in filmmaking; essentially, a digitally fabricated actor, in this case, a computerized younger version of Will Smith to act against the real life Will Smith. The trouble is, while the technology has come leaps and bounds in the last 5 years, and we’re very close, it’s still not 100% flawless; especially for those knowing the “trick/gimmick.” Lee’s repeated cuts around live action to avoid showing his “digital hand” hearken back to films like The Parent Trap or Multiplicity, cheating the audience of fully framed action or conversations, and instead offering a reaction shot or just a hand in frame, a strange choice given the additional technical choice to shoot in 4k digital video at 120 frames per second. If you’re going for flawless video, why not really showcase your digital actor and real life actor together on screen as much as possible and really make a splash? Dogging the film further, the curse of a flat story runs rampant, and unfortunately, thinly constructed characters just don’t offer enough meat to really keep us invested in their well being, ho hum. On the positive, some of this year’s best action sequences are captured in this otherwise yawn worthy narrative, so that’s working for them. Perhaps wait for rental on this one, or, save your entertainment dollar altogether. Gemini Man is rated PG-13.