Post by Dracula on Dec 7, 2022 11:01:12 GMT -5
The Gray Man(12/1/2022)
Confession, for the longest time I thought this movie starred Ryan Reynolds and have been partly avoiding it for that reason. But it doesn’t, it stars Ryan Gostling, which is theoretically better as Ryan Gostling isn’t someone I constantly want to punch but it’s also kind of worse because it means an actor I actually like is stuck in the middle of this bullshit Netflix movie that feels like it was written by an algorithm. It’s not quite as egregious in this regard as Netflix’s actual Ryan Reynolds vehicle The Adam Project but… actually, maybe it is. This is also something of an indictment of just how talentless the Russo Brothers are when they don’t have the Marvel Cinematic Universe to work with. Many have tried to launch spy themed action movies to compete with Mission: Impossible and James Bond, likely because they can be big action spectacles with franchise potential but which don’t require expensive IP, but many of them have failed in large part because there really isn’t as much room for these things as people think there is and also because these things frankly aren’t as easy to make as they look. This one makes a lot of the usual mistakes. For one, it has a rather bland hero who’s trying to be a generic cipher like Ethan Hunt but without Tom Cruise level star power. Secondly, these movies are usually too cowardly to root their stories in anything resembling real world conflicts so it ends up feeling like the characters are all just spying for the sake of spying and the stakes end up feeling nebulous and/or artificial. And also most of these movies just don’t really have the level of spectacle to compete with the biggest action movies out there while also not really having the stories to make up for it. The results are generic and forgettable, and that’s even more true here than usual and I really checked out of it pretty quickly. The Russos have spent much of 2022 talking like tech bros spouting buzzwords like they’re more interested in impressing their bosses’ stockholders than they are in anything resembling art and this movie is pretty emblematic of where their heads are at these days.
*1/2 out of Five
Confession, for the longest time I thought this movie starred Ryan Reynolds and have been partly avoiding it for that reason. But it doesn’t, it stars Ryan Gostling, which is theoretically better as Ryan Gostling isn’t someone I constantly want to punch but it’s also kind of worse because it means an actor I actually like is stuck in the middle of this bullshit Netflix movie that feels like it was written by an algorithm. It’s not quite as egregious in this regard as Netflix’s actual Ryan Reynolds vehicle The Adam Project but… actually, maybe it is. This is also something of an indictment of just how talentless the Russo Brothers are when they don’t have the Marvel Cinematic Universe to work with. Many have tried to launch spy themed action movies to compete with Mission: Impossible and James Bond, likely because they can be big action spectacles with franchise potential but which don’t require expensive IP, but many of them have failed in large part because there really isn’t as much room for these things as people think there is and also because these things frankly aren’t as easy to make as they look. This one makes a lot of the usual mistakes. For one, it has a rather bland hero who’s trying to be a generic cipher like Ethan Hunt but without Tom Cruise level star power. Secondly, these movies are usually too cowardly to root their stories in anything resembling real world conflicts so it ends up feeling like the characters are all just spying for the sake of spying and the stakes end up feeling nebulous and/or artificial. And also most of these movies just don’t really have the level of spectacle to compete with the biggest action movies out there while also not really having the stories to make up for it. The results are generic and forgettable, and that’s even more true here than usual and I really checked out of it pretty quickly. The Russos have spent much of 2022 talking like tech bros spouting buzzwords like they’re more interested in impressing their bosses’ stockholders than they are in anything resembling art and this movie is pretty emblematic of where their heads are at these days.
*1/2 out of Five
