'I know you, you're the slow bald guy that's been chasing me'
Red Notice 6
A worldwide hunt for an ancient Egyptian artefact brings together three experts, each claim to have their own agenda. The plot winds it's way around the globe, stopping to take in scenery, fight scenes and car chases along the way.
Thus isn't the kind of film designed to critically analyse so, at the risk of overthinking it....
I found it unoriginal and too action heavy and story/character light for my taste. The plot is unlikely and full of holes and coincidence, but the story moves quickly so it's easy to follow and go along with. I didn't see the particular twist coming, but there was obviously always going to be one. Some of the oceans 12 storyline is pinched here, in fact there's quite a bit of Ocean's trilogy influence here. There is a similar slickness and even some of the music reminded me of them, but there's not as much of the charisma. I also got some of the feel of the recent Fast and Furious films in the action, which isn't a good or a bad thing.
There are a few very well done moving camera shots, like the chase sequences, and gladly they weren't cutting every second, but still a bit much for me. Most of the best action sequences I've seen are done in longer takes or ideally one take if possible. So that you get the impressive stuff on screen as usual, but also the aspect of all the real filmmaking work that went into it, aswell as the impression that the characters are really going through it. An ideal example is the famous Oldboy corridor fight (looking at you Bradley) or Children of Men chase/shootout. In Oldboy he beats his way through multiple people but crucially he gets hit and even stabbed himself, so he's the best fighter but not invincible. Red Notice does that stereotypical action thing of having the guys (who are both pretty brasen with thier work, not really protecting themselves as much as they should) fighting off rooms of prison guards, getting shot at by multiple marksmen, being inches from death many times and they are never hit or even scratched, so there's no sense of danger. Its one of the reasons I'm not a fan of the early James Bonds.
I understand that this kind of thing is there for escapism and suspension of reality, which can work in some cases if there is an overall message. But with this I found no deeper meaning so beyond the entertainment you get from it (and there is plenty of that) there's nothing there, which means a relatively low score from me. Also we see the other stereotype of most aspects of the story and characters being to the extremes i.e. they're all the best in the world, impossible tasks and there's no subtlety in the script. Everything is really poured on to supposedly make it more exciting but it doesn't need it, and ends up being less personal therefore less interesting to me. Lots of great films focus on a small event or small group of barely interesting normal people, it's what comes after that makes the difference.
There were things I appreciated about it, Reynolds and Johnson have good chemistry, there's no doubting they are both likeable, albeit typecast in these roles. Reynolds does his quick talking wit and Dwayne his tough but soft act, for me the best moments were when they were simply speaking to eachother. I liked the Rock getting crashed into in the Porsche just when a car chase was being set up.
I also liked how Reynolds' character refers to lots of films, including LOTR, Pulp Fiction, Eyes wide shut, Indiana Jones and the wonderful but lesser known All quiet on the Western Front and Sullivan's travels. He mentions a MacGuffin, which would take too long to explain properly but is a reference to Alfred Hitchcock - His idea was that there is an enigmatic object, or a person etc. that is the main focus of the characters' storyline, but what it actually is is immaterial and sometimes not even revealed. It could be anything (like the Holy Grail in Monty Python or the briefcase in Pulp Fiction) it just represents completion of the journey and the driving force of the story.. in this case a priceless antique egg. To semi-coherently have all of this plus Bake Off and Ed Sheeran in one go I suppose is an achievement in itself.
Like so many of these modern big budget films, it's all surface. The audience isn't trusted, or even expected to really think about the story. It is pretty mindless so maybe it is best to suspend any critical faculties. There are films that have the above issues, but I still like them because there are redeeming features i.e. Boss Level wasn't a great one and maybe wasn't quite as entertaining but it looked great and I like how it dealt with some interesting high concepts, so at least it was aiming for something of interest, the same goes for Sucker Punch. Red Notice frankly seemed more like a chance for the actors to be seen in exotic places and show off instead of really telling a story. Although it had the impressive camerawork, it wasn't enough for me. It wasn't a waste of time, but i didn't really get anything from it.
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