Gemini Man

Mr E

Gemini Man is an innovative action-thriller starring Will Smith as Henry Brogan, an elite assassin, who is suddenly targeted and pursued by a mysterious young operative that seemingly can predict his every move. The film is directed by Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Ang Lee and produced by renowned producers Jerry Bruckheimer, David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Don Granger. Also starring are Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Clive Owen and Benedict Wong. Gemini Man opens in theaters October 11, 2019.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbyJignbSj0

pixelburp

The de-ageing looks decent; that's ultimately where the film's going to be judged really, and bar a few spots it looked OK. The future of blockbuster cinema is going to be a very strange place; 'gerry-action' will probably become a thing of the past, with digitally de-aged septuagenarians shooting up the place.

Also, welcome back to Hollywood Clive Owen, been a while since he starred in anything you'd seen in a cinema.

Agent Coulson

A man I thought this was a remake of the 70's TV series.


Ang Lee & Jerry Bruckheimer a match made in heaven.

I'm In.

Arghus

Feels like a meta-commentary on the fading star power of Will Smith. He's playing off against a younger fresher version of himself.

pixelburp

Arghus wrote: »

Feels like a meta-commentary on the fading star power of Will Smith. He's playing off against a younger fresher version of himself.

They must have paid a princely sum for his services, all the same

*gets coat*

McLoughlin

So Will Smith finally gets to work with his favorite actor

bnt

There's a new featurette out with some behind-the-scenes action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwhPVaFkbic

El Duda

Digital De-Aging: The Movie

Tazzimus

In fairness, Will Smith has barely aged as it is.

Sleepy

pixelburp wrote: »

Also, welcome back to Hollywood Clive Owen, been a while since he starred in anything you'd seen in a cinema.

For such a good actor, with some very decent starring roles in his past and having given good performance when just a bit character in other actor's vehicles (e.g. his role in The Bourne Identity) his star never seems to have reached the peak I'd have expected.

Is he hard to work with? Or does he have a useless agent / terrible choice of scripts or what?

bnt

My impression is that he doesn’t feel he has anything to prove. He’s a family man with a lot of money, enjoying the good life. Bad scripts don’t seem to hurt him much e.g. Wild Wild West, or the original Bad Boys script that left him and Martin Lawrence to improvise most of their dialogue.

Sleepy

I was talking about Clive Owen

Agent Coulson

Saw the trailer on the big screen for the first time today and the de-aging of Smith doesn't look great at all to my eyes.


Clive Owen been busy making ads for Betfair getting in on the Ray Winstone money from Betting companies.

johnny_ultimate

I wish Ang Lee would stop trying to make high frame rate a thing. Everything just looks so cheap

Josey Wales

Any cinema in Ireland showing this in 120fps?

Relikk

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I wish Ang Lee would stop trying to make high frame rate a thing. Everything just looks so cheap

Only ever saw The Hobbit movies in that format, but it really is such a non-cinematic style. It's like sitting in the front rows of a theatre, watching a stage play.

branie2

I really enjoyed it

AMKC

Just back from watching this today and have to say I really enjoyed it. So much better than the last overrated dull film I went t see aka ''The Joker.

This is funny, it has action, it has a clever story with twists and turns.

It was very strange watching the young Will smith and hearing the same voice coming out of him and when they are both together it was quiet funny.

I would give it 7 out of 10.

Slydice

Hrmmm..

Doesn't look like you are the only ones.

Slydice wrote: »

Gemini Man apparently:
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gemini_man_2019

expectationlost

saw the motorbike fight clip, the digital character doesn't have enough weight

AMKC

Slydice wrote: »

Hrmmm..

Doesn't look like you are the only ones.

I disagree with the subpar story part. If you want to see a predictable subpar story go watch Joker. The story in this is very good actually.

ronano

AMKC wrote: »

I disagree with the subpar story part. If you want to see a predictable subpar story go watch Joker. The story in this is very good actually.

Lol, I'll be honest your enthusiasm for Gemini half makes me want to see it and I probably will if only for Smith's charisma. You're beating a dead horse with the Joker comments!

JP Liz V1

Sleepy wrote: »

I was talking about Clive Owen

He was rumoured for Bond at one time, could now be a decent villain

Is Will on a comeback, Aladdin did well money wise, can this

Mr E

Saw it today. Enjoyed this. Reviews were harsh.

Definitely a bit of uncanny valley with junior though

El Duda

FAO people bemused at the high RT audience score

People who willingly pay money to see Will Smith films are among the most easily pleased people on earth.

ubald.stone

Agent Coulson wrote: »

A man I thought this was a remake of the 70's TV series.


Ang Lee & Jerry Bruckheimer a match made in heaven.

I'm In.

Me too.

Homelander

I have to say I thought this was a steaming pile of crap, I'm baffled at how it supposedly cost $140m to make. The plot and script are terrible, direction is weak, the CGI is seriously subpar with horrible and obvious green screen, and the de-aging CGI is probably the worst I've seen in a film of this budget in recent years - felt like I was watching a video game cutscene half the time. I don't mind subpar CGI when it's complimentary to the film, but in this case, it's literally at the films core.

I honestly think it's the worst film I've seen all year. It looks and plays out like a straight to DVD movie, not a massive blockbuster. I thought Bright was genuinely a good and terribly under-rated movie despite the huge gap between critic/audience scores, but I'm totally with the critics on this one. It's a total turd, 2/10 is being generous.

mrmorgan

AMKC wrote: »

Just back from watching this today and have to say I really enjoyed it. So much better than the last overrated dull film I went t see aka ''The Joker.

This is funny, it has action, it has a clever story with twists and turns.

It was very strange watching the young Will smith and hearing the same voice coming out of him and when they are both together it was quiet funny.

I would give it 7 out of 10.

if this is serious, I question your taste in movies.


Joker is a total classic and as for this........

Kirby

Homelander wrote: »

the de-aging CGI is probably the worst I've seen in a film of this budget in recent years - felt like I was watching a video game cutscene half the time.

I'm not having a go at you in particular but I hear people say this all the time and it completely baffles me. I'm convinced people who say this don't actually play games because no game, ever, has come close to this type of CG.

Yes, I personally found the fight scene CG pretty poorly done with not enough weight and heft given to the actors. They were also too fast which breaks the immersion. But you specifically mentioned the de-ageing which is just leagues ahead of what games can do from a realism and uncanny valley point of view.

For example, the SWTOR cutscenes are widely regarded as some of the best game CG cutscenes out there despite being a decade old.

And they cost 100 million. 99% of games are using in-engine rendered cutscenes that look far, far worse.

Detroit : Become Human, God of War and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice are examples of really good looking human faces in recent games and they still fall short of what we see in movies like this. The Unreal Engine and CryEngine are the pinnacles of visual graphics technology in 2020 and neither can create a human as realistic as young Will Smith in this......or even the "poor" efforts from the Irishman.

So please, stop saying things like the above quote. It's frighteningly inaccurate.

As for the movie itself, I found it enjoyable enough.

Homelander

People say that because the effect looks distinctly non-realistic in the same sense that game efforts at emulating people are often impressive, but there's no mistaking the difference between what's real and what's not.

Watching young Will Smith in Gemini Man looked exactly like watching a cutscene from something like Modern Warfare at times - the texture, subtle movements, all entirely and very blatantly betray the fact it's not a real person, despite it being impressive a) in principle at times and b) at some points; I found consistency to be a major problem.

It's not just nitpicking at de-aging tech - it's very notably inferior to what Marvel achieved in Captain Marvel, the argument is nothing to do with de-aging tech and everything to do with Gemini Man, specifically.

You've also highlighted the point above about the motorbike scene, and compounded it by posting that Star Wars clip - the Gemini Man motorbike scene was blatantly CGI and quite poor CGI at that, lacking any sense of presence or weight, i.e, looked like a video game cutscene once again.

Once again, it's nothing to do with CGI in general and everything to do with Gemini Man itself. It has poor, ropey green screen and weak CGI in spots, there are films out there that cost much less, and have vastly superior CGI that feels far more grounded and truer to the real world it resides in.

I also don't ultimately get your argument, Gemini Man's de-aging tech being superior to characters models in video games ≠ 'it feels like a video game' being an invalid opinion regardless.

So, you can continue to be baffled and I'll continue to believe that Gemini Man feels like watching a video game cutscene in the worst possible sense at regular intervals. And yes, I play a lot of video games.

I Am The Law

https://youtu.be/hTWLDa5DnpQ

pixelburp

The CGI was variable; sometimes props were due, the younger Smith was top notch and I stopped thinking I was watching an effect. the problem was consistency and about half the time it went all Polar Express with a dead eyed mannequin. Arguably what sunk it was that the very last shot of young Smith was (one of) the worst in the whole film, leaving a bad taste.

The plot was fairly so so, the action perfunctory. It's no great wonder this was a flop when it came out, it sunk money into CGI and 48fps filming and was never going to claw that back. De-ageing ain't a draw anymore, that's a Tuesday in the MCU.

MJohnston

Saw this in 60fps when I was in San Francisco back in October. I really wanted to experience the 120fps thing but nobody was showing it in that format. Here’s what I posted on Letterboxd back then:

Not a great movie by any stretch. Way too emotionally distant, which is a real problem because it's an action movie that really tries to reach for something deeper. Part of that is the expressionless acting of Junior Will Smith, part of it is the bottomless blandness of the script.

The high frame rate thing rescues it only a little. It fades into insignificance in basic dialogue scenes, but it truly makes fairly standard action scenes seem like a completely new experience.

Worth seeing in high frame rate, but this isn’t a memorable movie otherwise.

Would love to see a movie where the action is filmed in 120fps, but everything else is in normal 24fps. I’m surprised Cameron isn’t interested in this for Avatar 2.

The motorcycle fight you’re all grumbling about, the 60fps really changed the way that scene felt - instead of any normal action scene where you’re struggling to pick up on what’s going on, in HFR you could track every single little move of the action. The speed of Junior’s attacks really worked very well with that, and it felt completely unlike any other action movie I’d ever seen.

I believe the UHD Blu-ray of this has a 60fps version, which I’d love to experience again. Bad film, very interesting technology.

McDermotX

MJohnston wrote: »

.....

I believe the UHD Blu-ray of this has a 60fps version, which I’d love to experience again. Bad film, very interesting technology.

It does.

Terrible film, but a worthwhile watch on a technological level just the once, for those interested in a different aesthetic. Gunplay scenes very sharp, very smooth but obviously some of the CGI work is horrendously obvious and takes the viewer out of the comfort zone, with the motorcycle sequence holding up quite well until the young Smith starts fighting old Smith with the bike, where HFR or not, it looks terrible.

Sad Professor

Watching this in 60fps and it's amazing how HFR by making everything more real makes everything more fake. The only benefit is in fast moving and chaotic actions scenes where the higher frame rate brings clarity but also makes every instance of green screen and CGI more obvious.

The Black Oil

I spent the first 30 minutes or so trying to figure out why Will Smith agreed to do this. Clive Owen is landed with what must be amongst the worst dialogue of his career. Clearly, someone found a file of bad villain lines and simply copied them into the script. Despite all this, I found it fairly watchable, though some of that's because of Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Less so frustrating and just rather disappointing. Ang Lee, what are you at, fella?