Review on Gemini Man (2019)

Gemini Man is an action thriller film directed by Ang Lee. It stars Will Smith who plays the role of Henry Brogan. Henry Brogan is a very skilled assassin, but later decides to retire from his profession. But there's one thing in common I've noticed about Assassins movies where the Assassin decides to retire, the agency they work for always have a hard time letting them go, probably because of fear of the Assassin leaking their secret and getting them exposed. And in most cases they bring up another Assassin to eliminate them.

Well, we see the same thing here. But in this case the agency sends a younger Assassin to eliminate Henry. This younger assassin turns out to be Henry's clone; a younger version of himself, and even stronger. Apart from the similarities in the physical appearance between Henry and his clone who is called Junior, they both have the same skills and abilities. When you see them both fighting it's just like seeing a Mortal Kombat video game when two characters who are the same, for example Sub-Zero on one side and another Sub-Zero on the other side fighting themselves. But the difference is that Junior lacks human emotion and moral compass, but that's what you get when you create a being with technology.

This puts Henry in a tough spot as he is forced to confront his younger self, both physically and emotionally. This also opens his eyes to the underground experiments that had been going on without Henry's awareness while he was in the agency. This leads him into taking a deep investigation and bringing out the illegal operations to light.

Watching this movie reminded me of Terminator Genisys, where Arnold Schwarzenegger came in contact with his younger self at the beginning part of the movie and posed as an opposition to him in the movie. I don't know why the younger one always has to be the bad guy. I was just intrigued by Will's ability to carry out both the role of Henry Brogan and his younger self who is the ruthless version of himself perfectly. Although I found the storyline — of an Assassin planning on retiring and facing off against a younger clone — a bit generic and not really surprising.

The technical aspect in the movie was without a doubt top-notch. But I think that was a bit of a problem because it failed to delve more into the storytelling. I really enjoyed it for its action and impressive visuals. But I was expecting more in the area of the plot though. I rate the movie 6 out of 10. Regardless of the areas it seemed to have lacked, it was still a great movie.

Images source: IMDB