You can’t argue with the muscular marquee value of headlining Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot in a slick, fast-paced action thriller laced with playful comedy, even if it’s an empty-calorie entertainment like Red Notice. Like many Netflix star vehicles, writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber’s busy crime caper has more glossy industrial sheen than unique personality. But it’s diverting enough to justify the sequel so clearly set up in its final scenes, even if it’s unlikely to linger in the minds of many viewers beyond the end credits. Mostly, the derivative adventure keeps you occupied checking off the many films from which it borrows. It starts well enough with an engaging opening that sets up the MacGuffins of the film, which are the three ornate eggs that Mark Antony supposedly gifted to Cleopatra on their wedding day. Two were recovered, with one in a museum in Rome and the other in the private collection of a wealthy arms dealer, while the third exists only in rumor. The Rome-based egg is targeted for thievery on the black market, which spurs FBI special profiler and art specialist John Hartley (Johnson) and Interpol Inspector Das (Ritu Arya) to confirm that it’s still secure. It is not, because famed art thief Nolan Booth (Reynolds) has already absconded with the priceless piece, creating the first of many, many chases involving the two men trying to outmaneuver one another physically, mentally, or, in Reynolds’ case, with an arsenal of “dad joke”-level quips. The other player in this quest is Gadot’s Sarah Black, a slinky art thief who considers herself the greatest in the world, and makes it her life’s work to be just one step ahead of both Hartley and Booth as she’s pursuing the eggs for a buyer willing to pay $300 million for their collection and delivery.
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| Red Notice starts with a lot of energetic potential but then devolves into a pastiche of other, better films, cribbing scenes that feel like they were lifted straight from a myriad of films from Indiana Jones to Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Of the three mega-star leads, Dwayne Johnson acquits himself the best to committing to his FBI profiler as more of a brainy hero rather than just brawn, and it works. Reynolds exists as a quip machine who gets tiresome quick, while Gadot feels like she’s barely in it. While this may be positioned as a new franchise, there’s nothing here that sets up any urgency or excitement to go on more adventures with this trio. |
And that’s carried through to Reynolds’ Booth, who is a test to the nerves with his constant, terrible running commentary of comebacks and snarkery about everything. Yes, it’s Reynolds’ signature schtick, but in Red Notice, he operates like an obnoxious talking doll with a broken pull string. In yet another suspension of disbelief, it’s unbelievable that neither Gadot or Johnson’s characters wouldn’t gag him with a sock by the second act, especially when Booth gets weirdly emotional with Hartley. Who needs bro bonding in a heist, relic, caper? Thurber makes a lot of other odd choices in the film, like not letting Chris Diamantopoulos go full weird with his short-man-syndrome arms dealer, Sotto Voce (yes, that’s the character’s name.) Instead, he’s allowed to rasp his lines like he’s in dire need of a lozenge, but never ends up taking the space an intentional bad guy should have in a movie like this. In fact, there’s no real antagonist of note to hang the stakes of the film on at all, and that’s because Thurber is more interested in maintaining the moral liquidity of all the characters so you’re left guessing about their true intentions instead of feeling any sense of danger at any point. It’s just an endless race from museums to Russian prisons to bullfighting rings and jungles, which all blur together without giving anything time to breathe, as we wait for someone to double-cross someone because that’s all the whole movie keeps giving us.
Plus, by the second and third act, every set piece feels derivative from another movie. Ocean’s 11, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, National Treasure, The Mummy, and even Mr. and Mrs. Smith could all rightfully accuse Red Notice of stealing their scenes. What makes it even worse is the fact that this cast is up to doing something truly different. Gadot, when she appears, plays Black like she’s having a lot of fun. Reynolds is more than capable of not coming across like a human blooper reel, but that’s all he’s asked to do here. And Johnson does his best to bring a competent hotness to Hartley so he’s not just the muscle, which makes him the MVP here. But the dialogue and strange, forced bromance that Booth demands of Hartley, even if it’s a joke, is tiring and not as engaging as the filmmakers think it is. Red Notice really needed a script with a much lighter touch all around. It should have been sexier and smarter, with less action, and more original storytelling. Instead, it’s a mindless diversion that’s blandly familiar, yet thinks it’s far cleverer than it really is.
