Despite some of the movies Netflix has made, there’s a goof argument to be made that a good number of them would be a perfect fit for a theatrical experience. From the epic crime film The Irishman, the heart pounding action movie Extraction or the recent zombie flick Army of the Dead, Netflix impressively showcases that their movies have great cinematic excellence to them that should be experienced on the big screen, but for the case for most people, that just isn’t the case, in the grand total of things. Netflix is also experimenting with the types of movies they continue to produce and whether or not their any good is a different conversation. We know Netflix is one of the hallmarks of streaming original series, but it when it comes to their movies that’s where people fall on two different sides. So, when it came to the announcement of Red Notice, making it one of Netflix’s most expensive movies (sitting around $200 million), there was a lot of enticement on the ideas of Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot all starring in one movie together. These are three of Hollywood’s biggest and most stunning actors and actresses in the entirety of the business and they all have an incredible and devoted fan base. Dwayne Johnson has some of best charisma of any Hollywood leading man, Ryan Reynolds became huge with his comeback as Deadpool and people are massively obsessed with Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. Suffice to say that making a movie with these three, while a risk, is an investment worth taking. Even for the case of Netflix, is a last minute decision to drop Red Notice in theaters (in a limited release) the week before it dropped on the streaming platform. And with Rawson Marshall Thurber serving as the director, who has collaborated with Dwayne Johnson on Central Intelligence and Skyscraper, he has proven to do comedy and action both competently. There was already a spark of chemistry in a very brief scene in Hobbs & Shaw with Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds, so the duo between these two has the utmost potential to work. Red Notice is beautiful looking, action packed buddy comedy that’s tailor made for a theatrical blockbuster experience. It’s visuals give it a clean and polished look, it’s full of energy, a delicious pace and the performances from the star loaded trio makes everything even more enjoyable.
Set in modern times and in various international territories, Red Notice focuses on FBI agent John Hartley (Dwayne Johnson) who willingly teams up with the the famous art thief Nolan Booth (Ryan Reynolds) in order to track down and capture the more scandalous criminal The Bishop (Gal Gadot).
It’s really hard to reinvent the buddy cop spy genre and it’s fait to say that the biggest criticism with Red Notice is actually the narrative. We’ve seen countless of action spy movies that follow this formula. An ancient artifact gets stolen, our two leads have to team up (despite not liking each other at first), we travel to numerous countries around the world and our good guys end up claiming victory. Despite some twists and turns that might be thrown out you, Red Notice never tries to be different. More along those problems, the movie attempts to be extremely simple and pretty basic for entire length. That’s not to say that hurt the experience while watching it, but with having a cast like this and a fairly likable director, Red Notice kind of missing the mark on being setting itself aside by being different from other movies in the genre. Be that as it may, Red Notice surprisingly executes it’s material very well. Red Notice is a total ball from beginning to end that reminds us why this genre can be a lot of fun if it doesn’t take things too seriously. It’s not that the movie embraces a silly and goofy attitude, but what it does embrace is a damn delightful experience that succeeds on several key notes, and maybe the biggest highlight of the whole movie is the terrific chemistry that Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds have. Its sort of gimmick to take two big movie stars on pit them together in one movie and assume it’s gold without seeing the movie in it’s context. In the case for Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds, it works so well that it’s kind of hard to even believe. It’s full of laughter and terrific banter that you just can’t get enough of in almost any other movie.
In the case for Gal Gadot, this the first role she has done, outside of something such as Wonder Woman, where she is continuing to improve as a talent. She might not be at a thespian level, but her undeniable beauty and improvement of a young actress is a good sign for the right track for her career. That’s not to say she gets rich material to work with because she really doesn’t, heck none of the other actors really do. But to have her as the sort of ‘villain’ of the movie, and as an extra counter part with Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot is a solid addition to this spy adventure.
Rawson Marshall Thurber applied the scope of this movie almost in the vein of a Mission Impossible movie. It looks great, the locations and scenery pop and he even added some neat tactics with utilizing a drone for the cinematography for the sweeping shots of Rome and what have you. Visually speaking, Red Notice is maybe the best looking spy movie to date because it uses it’s background scenery to illustrate that the exotic locations of any great spy movie give it that desirable taste of style and the espionage aspects more alluring. The action and set pieces are well executed, fun and exhilarating. The action in the movie is sort of reminiscent of National Treasure, Indiana Jones and even shades of the Uncharted games. Another credit needs to go out to composer Steve Jablonsky for really relishing in the spy genre with some catchy and exotic sounding music.
At the end of the day, Red Notice did it’s job right. Sure, it doesn’t new anything new with it’s material or even the genre for that matter. However, the performances from trinity of Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot are great, the action is fun and the design of the movie give it some class.
My grade for Red Notice: B
Zane's take at the Cinema's 