The star-laden blockbuster, which is dropping on Netflix this week, features three A-list names, all in familiar roles: Dwayne Johnson as a tough FBI agent, Ryan Reynolds as a motormouthed art thief, and Gal Gadot as a mysterious criminal who forces the two men to team up against her.
I went into my screening wondering what about that original pitch was scintillating enough to spark such a frenzied bidding war—did it offer some fresh take on the action film, for example? What I saw disappointed me: Red Notice is a glossy but empty product that indicates the extent of the genre’s current crisis.
The genre has become essentially every studio’s economic powerhouse, resulting in uninspired predictability and heroes who are never actually in danger; the trashy artistry of 1980s and ’90s action classics is nothing more than a distant memory.
They double-cross each other a few times along the way, but these betrayals only flimsily channel the oppositional buddy energy that helped drive classics such as 48 Hrs., Lethal Weapon, or Midnight Run back in the genre’s heyday.
Reynolds stays in his usual territory, with a character who is almost identical to his best-known role as the wisecracking Deadpool—Booth references popular movies, deflates tension with snarky jokes, and fills dead air with winking bloviation.
Have you ever seen Dwayne Johnson throw someone across a room, or Ryan Reynolds snappily bicker before? Then why even look at the TV this time? It’s only more of the same.
I’m sure Red Notice would play better on a big screen—basically any movie would—but imposing visuals, a booming sound system, and the inability to look at your phone still wouldn’t solve the film’s most fundamental issues.