Red Notice
Director: Rawson Marshall Thurber
Writer: Rawson Marshall Thawer (the Quiznos dude in Easy A)
Starring: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot, Ritu Arya,
Reason for watching: That is some serious star power and an original movie release
Number of times I’ve watched it: first time viewing
***
Guys, I do my best not to let my other great love cross over onto this blog too much. But I can only keep the basketball comparisons at bay for so long. I am sorry I am not perfect, but this comparison works trust me.
In 2012 the Los Angeles Lakers needed to improve dramatically after a disappointing loss in the second of the NBA playoffs. They still had star power in Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, and Meta World Peace (his actual legal name), but they needed more. So they signed two-time MVP Steve Nash and the human meme machine formerly known as Dwight Howard (well I guess that’s still his name but whatever). They were primed to meet the LeBron James and Dwyane Wade led Miami Heat in the NBA finals, but the Lakers’ season was tanked by injuries and chemistry issues and the lack of a solid supporting cast to keep them afloat. The star power they had cultivated got butts in the seats in Los Angeles but did little else to help them win games. Here’s the moral of that barely-tangentially-related story: star power does a lot, but it cannot do everything. That’s something that the writers and producers of Red Notice should have kept in mind.
Red Notice revolves around the quest for the legendary eggs of Cleopatra. FBI Agent John Hartley (Dwayne Johnson) pursues art thief Nolan Booth (Ryan Reynolds) as he tries to capture all three of the eggs. However, Reynolds has some competition in the form of the Bishop (Gal Gadot), another legendary art thief but with a way more pretentious name. Imagine Indiana Jones mixed with Mission: Impossible. Just remove the Scientology and the barely-interested Han Solo.
I will compliment the action sequences. You can tell that Netflix really wanted to flex the money on this one. The special effects are some of the best they have done. Plus when you have action stars like the Rock and Gal Gadot, it is easy to keep people interested in the fights. It is not John-Wick levels of combat, but it is very watchable. Plus Ryan Reynolds comedic timing keeps you interested, and he plays well against the Rock who is always good as the straight man.
But the whole thing feels off a little bit. The jokes are overcooked. The chemistry is off between our stars. The plot and journey does not really draw you in either. It feels like there is too much happening at once between our three leads but none of them really get enough time on screen to draw us in.
Here is the thing though, you can put all of that aside. The budget for this Netflix original movie was a whopping $200 million! To get that kind of money behind your project there had to have been a ton of producers and checkbooks behind you. With those big budgets comes a lot of expectations and cooks in the kitchen so to speak. This really hurts the creative process behind a movie. If you let too many voices have a say on the script, it can compromise the original vision of the artists. That is why their more wild shows and movies have a lot of success. Stranger Things was not expected to be a huge thing initially, but after its amazing first season people wanted more and that is how we got another three seasons of that show. I really think that Netflix let too many people in on the production Red Notice and that drove the quality of the movie down.
5/10
Until I see another one