Among countless Hollywood stars, Will Smith is one of those top faces who seems to appear in any offered role in mainstream film, which nowadays usually slums down to mediocre hashes like Aladdin and After Earth. With that in mind, it’s not hard to see why some would see him, along with other stars like Bruce Willis, as little more than charismatic faces on a poor product. Now if there were two of those faces of the exact same actor on the poster of an obscure upcoming project, how would you imagine that film to turn out?
I went into Gemini Man with the absolute lowest expectations. Expecting it to be an absolute confused, watered-down blockbuster trope with the prospectus of a unique narrative feature (two fresh princes) thrown on the cover to hide the internal laughability. Well what a surprise it was that I beheld a lot of unoriginality and yet walked out with a feel of surprised satisfaction.
Will Smith is a retiring assassin (yep it’s one of those films) who faces being chased down by government operatives after uncovering a secret about his last killing. Being on the run alongside his new monitoring agent (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and old friend (Benedict Wong), he soon finds that his main hunter is a tad bit too much like him. A younger version of himself. Now the three have to try and discover the purpose of this clone and uncover a dark government revolution within.
While many complain that Will Smith simply plays himself in every film (no ironic dual joke intended) his iconic charisma is suited exceptionally well in the film’s energy rather than slapped on for a selling-point. Leaning itself more towards the Mission Impossible humour side for his retired assassin self, which he plays typically well, but with a more cold, internal performance for his younger clone self, which is another side to his famous acting that would be considered done to death but bounces off his lighter other self to an oddly charming effect. I surprisingly enjoyed the conflicting differences between the Smith clones, with the man’s acting and the screenplay making them stand out as separate characters than Terminator clones. Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Benedict Wong also give solid performances in the usual Bond/MI roles that are still entertaining on their own with a cheesy but not unbearable script, which’s humour, hit and miss as it might be, thankfully isn’t fallen back on as many other difficult films.
Gemini Man’s selling action is surprisingly none too shabby, with one notable scene starting on an intense hunter-v-hunter sniper dual between the Smiths which transitions into an amusing but notably experimentive bike-v-man thrash, with Smith jumping and flopping for his life while Smith tries to daredevil-stunt his face into the floor being quite the extraordinary experience. What’s notable about Gemini Man’s action is its odd common use of slow-motion and first-person perspectives, which shouldn’t usually work but somehow comes out with a more unique immersive energy to what would be hashed guns-blazing action shots. Even a close-quarters hand-to-hand fight in the Paris catacombs is made immersive with its stunt-work and environment usage but not being edited to the point of having a lightspeed Taken 3 cut level.
But as for the film’s actual development and narrative structure….well it’s more a case of taking and discarding to enjoy it like I did. Smith’s clone Clay Junior is developed quite well throughout the film’s run. Being raised and trained by so-called father, the black-ops operator Clay (who’s played very Nic-Cage-eccentric by Clive Owen but is at least entertaining) to seamlessly replace Smith as the greatest assassin, he’s explored as the typical tough-outside-awkward-inside case but his background puts a unique emotional twist on this, especially once he finds out who he is. What’s furtherly interesting is how infantized he gets by this father figure, shown when he humorously eats a Mr Whippy surrounded by a violent military training programme and his returning from a failed assassination to confusedly confess to Clay. So Smith’s secondary role as a self-doubting clone brainwashed by a father figure was ultimately well handled. But the other characters are hardly coherently developed in the slightest and all lead up to a guns-blazing finale which gets resolved on a face-slap twist and a few cheesy wrap-up clichés. Seriously, its ending scene feels like something out of a bright, gagging Netflix film that instagram girls would sob at.
So what ultimately sold the film for me is its punchy second act, where not it not only explodes with three fist-fulls of well-directed but non-excessive action but is balanced with the film’s snappiest dialogue and experimentation with character conflict. If only the first and third act had this effort and didn’t carbon-copy Mission Impossible with a layer of cheddar cheese, then I could say this was a genuinely well-produced film than a guilty pleasure. So Gemini Man can be seen as an ultimately shallow film. But expecting this to be a grey bore epitome led to me being surprised with its innocently-punchy energy and firm direction, if ultimately typical, but its surprisingly well-explored main narrative and charismatic cast (obviously led by the Fresh Prince himself) rolled the end credits with a smile on my face. And if a film can do that then it’s ultimately not a bad one.