Ghosted (2023)
2023
PG-13
116 Minutes
Salt-of-the-earth Cole falls head over heels for enigmatic Sadie — but then makes the shocking discovery that she’s a secret agent. Before they can decide on a second date, Cole and Sadie are s...
User Review
-
If The Gray Man was a bland, lousy, unmemorable claptrap of a movie that was like watching somebody play a bad video game stuck in Beta, then “Ghosted” is a listless and sterile experience more vapid and forgettable than that…..and somehow more frustrating.
Look, this is meant to be a parody of sorts, an escapist film, following a ridiculously farfetched tale of finding love under the governments nose but almost every single element of this plot is structured like a “What-If”: what if Hallmark made a Mission Impossible movie? And that’s the thing that frustrates me the most about this movie: pulling off an action adventure romantic comedy means striking a precarious balance between every element of the multifaceted genre. It’s not easy to pull off but for the love of all that is holy, AT LEAST TRY to evolve the story beyond a smug elevator pitch.
The banality behind this laundry list of cheap, rehashed ideas betray a generic script that feels shallow, empty, and devoid of any tangible depth. The premise has faint glimmers of an intriguing story that had potential to tie in personal struggles and end of the world stakes on top but the inconsistent tone does not seem to settle on anything concrete in spite of having an eventful script where lots of things take place. Essentially, True Lies meets The Lost City meets Mr and Mrs. Smith but stale at the bone, like it was written by an A.I.
Even IF the story was halfway presentable, the features accompanying it wouldn’t have helped matters. You’re stuck with rushed, crummy CGI and flat action choreography that doesn’t make the fights any intriguing to watch. The few times they do throw a neat mechanic to slice it up, they never do anything clever with the production design that accompanies all of it is just window dressing and nothing more. Its uses of humor are pedestrian at best and non-existent at worse; gags that aren’t fun and crushingly bland dialogue packing the most heavy-handed exposition this year yet. But it isn’t as egregious as the misuse of Lorne Balfe’s music; it’s bad enough how on-the-nose and dissonant the placement of these music tracks are but the score itself is painfully droll.
Ana De Armas and Chris Evans only succeed at making the experience tolerable to sit through but even then, their chemistry-free pairing together is catastrophic; it is squeezed dry like weeks-old toothpaste tubes. The rest of this star-studded A-list cast is left floundering, and they're unable to bring nothing special to their characters either.
Keep in mind, this is coming from the same man who did Rocketman, Eddie the Eagle and finished Bohemian Rhapsody; NONE OF THAT helps him here. Sure, Dexter Fletcher does try his best at maneuvering everyone through scene to scene but his usual creative, quirky style is dumbed out at every turn and also keep this in mind: you have to deal with this for two straight hours long. We know how everything is going to go so just get there already.
With that being said, the film…..doesn’t rush through anything or drag on for an eternity with the content it has, so on that regard, this film can say it “earns” the soul-crushing length that it does with its runtime. The cinematography is fine and the editing is far from erratic and disorienting…..even if the commercialized allure of its shots and presentation is hard NOT to notice.
There’s nothing surprising about this movie. It’ll tick off the boxes you’ve seen a million times and vanish before you even remember what happened but not me; I remember shit. It’s really the sheer lack of commitment to the few ideas it has that aggravate me the most and the good bits of the movie are subtlety buried under the crushing weight of bickering, studio notes and the all-pervading stink of something being rotten in Denmark.0 member like this review.
