The Gray Man (2022) For a few moments, we contemplated the idea of simply recycling our 11/18/21 review of "Red Notice", another one of Netflix's 200 million dollar budgeted, bloated attempts to reproduce a mindless summer multiplex movie.
All we'd really have to do change the names of the actors, maybe alter a few sentences to allow for the slight difference in storylines between the two films.
"The Gray Man" a CIA-hitman-versus-his-rogue-counterpart mashup, comes to us courtesy of brothers Anthony and Joe Russo, directors of two Captain America movies and two Avengers movies.
Therefore it's guaranteed that everybody in the cast will be well supplied with a steady stream of sarcastic, snarky gags even while they're shooting, chasing and kicking each other's brains out.
Ryan Gosling's the CIA guy, and Chris Evans, clearly having the best time ever, plays the wildly chatty, psychotic and sociopathic rogue agent.
The...uh...plot, such as it is, hinges on Gosling gaining possession of a flash drive that would send a ruthless, up-and-coming CIA chief (Rege Jean Page, the "Bridgherton" heartthrob) directly to jail. Hence the hiring of the out-of-control Evans to knock off Gosling and retrieve the McGuffin flash drive.
Tagging along to help out Gosling in an exhausting series of punch-ups, gun battles and car chases......Ana de Armas (but sadly, not wearing her drop dead gorgeous "No Time To Die" outfit.) Why this film feature de Armas decked out Dora The Explorer, we'll never know. Maybe she's on a quest to find the film's script......if it ever existed.
As a Neflix subscriber, we do worry along with the service about their catastrophic losses of subscribers and their spending 200 million on a movie like "The Gray Man", which turns out as such a machine tooled ,lifeless, soulless, empty headed film.
We're not sure what's worse, seeing Netflix spending that amount of money on "The Gray Man" or an equal amount of cash on unwatchable arthouse, culture-vulture sludge like Jane Campion's "The Power Of The Dog".
Maybe Netflix should start switching up directors.......maybe they should've let the Russo brothers make "The Power Of The Dog" and let Jane Campion take a crack at "The Gray Man"
No, scratch that notion. We just remembered, that's the kind of thinking that led to Marvel's horrific trainwreck "The Eternals", which combined the worst of both worlds, comic book junk and arthouse hot air.
Okay, we can't go on with this any further.......except to say this movie looks so generic and pre-assembled , it's as if it was constructed with Legos.
Come to think of it, that's not a bad idea. Take need, Netflix. Use Legos to snap together any further "Gray Man" and "Red Notice" sequels.
Think of the millions you'd save. And maybe a Lego "Gray Man" would attain something higher than the 2 stars (**) we're giving this one.
You're more than welcome, to the idea, guys......but don't forget an Executive Producer credit for BQ........we'll bill you at a later date.
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