Written by Taylor Baker
10/100
Netflix’s latest big-budget film Red Notice looks like a film, talks like a film, and acts like a film but is devoid of meaning, humanity, and sincerity. It’s reminiscent to the thin layer of laminate you often find on countertops and floors. Only brought to life by what lays behind it, which in this case are three of the biggest movie stars on the planet, forcing their persona’s as if they’re characters themselves into a shell of a screenplay. With awful CGI, continuity errors, and more drone cinematography than it knows how to use, it’s clear that Rawson Marshall Thurber bit off more than he could chew.
Rawson’s first film debuted over a decade ago in 2004, a perennially quoted comedy classic in Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. Between then and now he’s had varied success with We’re the Millers, Central Intelligence, and Skyscraper. The last two films were not only collaborations with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, but also massive successes earning more than 150 million dollars over their respective budgets at the box office. It’s clear what Netflix saw in getting a project from Thurber and Johnson on their platform. It’s hard to argue they’re wrong, from a dollars and cents standpoint. But this Nazi memorabilia frolic through meaningless landscapes spanning different continents seems as frivolous as Netflix’s bigger films have ever been.
The premise of the film is an art heist with a few double crosses, the likes of which we’ve seen on and off for at least the last 70 years. Dwayne Johnson’s John Hartley serves as FBI Profiler, and as the film begins he’s attempting to stop Nolan Booth played by Ryan Reynolds from making off with one of Cleopatra’s famed eggs. In the background is the faceless Bishop who tips off Hartley on Booth’s plan to steal the egg. But after an extended chase sequence which feels absent both excitement and consequences we see our hero gather the thief and the loot, only to be tricked by Gal Gadot’s Bishop and end up imprisoned in Russia with Booth. If this feels like a paint-by-numbers plot that’s because it distinctly is.
Michael Bay’s big budget Netflix behemoth 6 Underground (notably with a budget 150 million, 50 million dollars cheaper for those keeping score) that also featured Reynolds looked dazzling, had exciting moments, and felt steeped in real consequences. Sure, it was glossy and built around set pieces too, but it mostly like real humans going through those daring events. Red Notice shows endless streams of bullets flying thru the air toward a wall of baddies only to not hit anyone. And when they do get taken down it tends to be from something in the environment like when a rock wall dislodge a nameless baddy with the patented Star Wars scream sound effect.
The violence doesn’t just ring hollow but artificial. It seems as if earnings forecasts and algorithms comprise the very identity of the film. There’s an interesting real world correlation to Gadot’s Bishop hunting for the eggs of Cleopatra. Eggs which we may very well see again in her upcoming film with Patty Jenkins, Cleopatra. And early next year we’ll see her in Egypt for Branagh’s Death on the Nile. By the end of the film, it’s clear that the only chemistry that does exist is between Reynolds and Johnson. It’s hard to see how things get any better with the inevitable sequel that is set up in the falling action. I suspect that for the time being, we’re going to get more of these meaningless movie star films whether we like them or not.
Red Notice Trailer
Red Notice is currently available to stream on Netflix.
You can follow more of Taylor’s thoughts on Letterboxd, Twitter, and Rotten Tomatoes.
