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movie review - Red Notice

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Sometimes, Hollywood will make a movie simply by assembling a leading cast and letting them do their usual shtick. They tack on a "plot" and away you go. I've described this many times in this series of movie reviews, and frankly I'm beyond tired of it. Stupidly, however, I fell for it again when I watched "Red Notice". I mean all the warning signs were there: Ryan Reynolds; Dwayne Johnson. Dummy!

But, now that lazy cash grabs at the box office make up 17% of the North American economy*, this movie is certainly doing its part. Costing 200 million dollars to make, which I suspect mostly went up someone's collective nose, this basically has no plot to speak of. It features a string of slick scenes that hold together in a sense in that they can be related to each other in the actors that are in them. But most of the scenes are BS and this becomes increasingly annoying as it goes on. I watched this damn thing at the end of a particularly brutal week at work and wanted something to unwind with. Instead, I found myself growing annoyed with this astonishingly shallow piece. They simply hired three big stars and gave them "roles" and then pretended that this would work as a story. There's no real sense or urgency or conflict or that the characters have a motivation. In retrospect I'm not even sure who the protagonist actually is.

Supposedly, it's a heist-spy hybrid movie, so you know there will be betrayals galore. By the time the final two scenes come along the whole thing no longer makes any sense at all. They wrap this up in a stupendously stupid final betrayal/make-up combo for the sole purpose of setting up the sequels. And that's just bullshit. I mean, it's just bloody ridiculous that people would behave the way depicted.

Not recommended. Avoid.

*Just kidding: In Canada, that's the housing industry, including construction, home renovations, inspections, fees, and other peripheral activities. You know, like in any normal functioning economy.