Movie Details
| Title: | The Gray Man | |
| Director: | Anthony Russo, Joe Russo | |
| Year: | 2022 | |
| Genre: | Action | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 07.23.22 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (3)
- Avengers: Endgame
- Captain America: Civil War
- You, Me and Dupree
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 07.23.22 | Netflix | I was in a mood to watch an action movie that was hopefully decent. This wasn't as terrible as that 6 Underground Michael Bay piece of dogshit, so that's good... but it did make me wonder why I wasn't just watching True Lies again. It's been a while since I've seen that and I think James Cameron had the talent to pull this kind of spy action movie off better than anyone. It's a shame he's been on whatever Avatar 2 - 8 nonsense that's going to close out his career, because his pre-titanic career was amazing. Anyway, back to this one. There were a few stand-out action set pieces but for me it was all undercut by Ryan Gosling's super-powers combined with his plot-armor jean-jacket. Like, I guess everyone forgot what made Die Hard good? It's one thing if it's Arnold Schwarzenegger circa 1986 where he LOOKS like an invincible god, but Ryan Gosling? Even professionally-trained Marvel version of Ryan Gosling still looks like a somewhat normal dude, and they give him Ryan Reynolds smirk-fest dialogue for the whole movie so it all combines to feel like the whole movie is a 9 year old kid playing with his toys. I mean, that's what it made me feel anyway. So the last act had some real problems for me. At least when it's a kid playing with his gi-joes the bad guy blows up or dies in quicksand at the end... not some moral quandary CIA bullshit that immediately gets undercut. If Ryan Gosling can kill 40 more dudes to get to the end of the movie, why can't he kill 2 more and at least make it satisfying? I really wanted an after-credits scene with one more explosion or something. These are all lessons that the first couple Bourne movies laid out that this movie did not learn. So... yeah. it was ok. I know this whole note is me shitting on it and comparing it to better movies, but it actually was better than 6 Underground. The smirk-fest dialogue was kinda funny in parts and the pacing (for the most part) held my interest. There's a certain directness in the dialogue where the movie doesn't dilly dally which I can appreciate, even if by the end these racing-drone style shots of all these different cities gets a little fatiguing. Dang, I was trying to list what I liked about it. Um... it seemed like Chris Evens enjoyed playing the bad guy, although he too suffered from being an action figure rather than an actual human being. Um... I don't know I've written a lot. You'll just have to believe me that I didn't totally hate this, but I guess you can believe that I probably will never watch it again. |
