Review of Gemini Man (2019) by Sinuousgrace — 14 Oct 2019

I saw it in 4K 60fps 3D. I recommend you do too. First of all, the technology used to recreate Will Smith as a young guy was hit or miss. In some scenes it was very convincing, but in others I could sense the same dead eyes and weird expressions that I’m used to from videogame cutscenes. There was a sappy college campus scene at the very end that looked particularly bad from a CGI perspective. His jean jacket looked like maybe a PS3 texture. Second, the movie itself wasn’t bad. It was an action film. It would have been better if the violence felt more impactful, but like in many films the characters seemed to be able to shrug off bullet wounds, take enormous physical abuse with just a few aches and minor cuts, and heal lacerations and abrasions at remarkable speed. I thought the story was passable. A little bit of Bourne, a little bit of Orphan Black. It’s not going to win any awards and some things (such as the implications of cloning or the super soldier program) could have been done a lot better, but it wasn’t terrible by any means. I did think there was an interesting point raised at the end by the main villain. Now, as to the 60 fps. I thought it was amazing! It was so clear, it was like being there. Right off the bat I got this feeling of the veil being lifted, like a layer of vaseline that pervades all other films had been wiped clean. It was very easy to follow the action, even just camera pans, and to feel a part of it. The actors could not hide behind the judder of film creating artifical gravitas. Instead, I was there with them, seeing what they were ACTUALLY doing in each scene. It is un-movie-like, because I think we’re used to the obscuration of the low frame rate – think about when you’ve seen “behind the scenes” features or “making of” clips shot on video, where it feels like you’re seeing the ACTUAL scene and actors revealed without the layer of “film” turning it into a film. That’s what it felt like, like we’re getting to see a whole movie done like that in a much more true-to-life way. I didn’t notice any of the lack of depth of field that a couple of reviewers have complained about – there was quite a lot of depth focus / blurriness as well as decent 3D. I would say the 3D effect was used sparingly and didn’t take center stage. I’ve certainly seen more pronounced 3D, going all the way back to Avatar 2009. I had no trouble following anything or taking it all in, in fact I would say it was the opposite – but this type of film might lend itself more to that, since (other than young Will Smith) there was effectively no obvious CGI whereas The Hobbit film was mostly CGI.

Now, as to the action sequences – WOW. The first scene that made my jaw drop was the motorcycle chase scene and attempted assassination. It was stunning! The other scene that I would say really showed the potential was a fight scene between the two Wills down in some sort of catacomb with skulls. It was so easy to follow the fast action and to know everything that was happening (unlike, say, the Bourne films). There were other flourishes throughout the film – the drowning scene felt extremely real, whereas slow motion breaking bottles and water splashing were pure eye candy. On a 120Hz or 240Hz television with frame interpolation turned on, there are obvious artifacts everywhere you look and the effect is fairly unpleasant (despite the fact that 90% of the LCD televisions I’ve seen in peoples’ homes have the feature turned all the way up). This was smooth but also immaculately clear with no artifacts, obviously. I’d love to see what 120fps looks like (no currently available projector can do 120fps in 4K with 3D). Overall I didn’t find it distracting (the young Will CGI was sometimes immersion-breaking, however). I really liked it, I’d just like to see a better film utilize it. Actually I can think back to a lot of existing films that would have benefited from this.