Well, it’s another Friday night and another Middle Aged Movie Review for adults who find the living room and microwave popcorn preferable to dressing up, going out and (shudder) staying out too late.
(RELATED: Middle Age Movie Reviews – ‘Yellowstone’)
Tonight’s featured film is Netflix’s currently trending and quite popular Red Notice. Like just about every Netflix original, you have to fine tune your expectations. And by fine tune, I mean bring it down from Wes Anderson to Adam Sandler. In my opinion, Netflix has created a niche all of their own–the made-for-TV movie with a big budget and bigger talent.
With that in mind, this movie does not disappoint. Ryan plays a lovable, roguish art thief (Nolan Booth) and Johnson (heretofore referred to as “The Rock”) a good hearted, bright but naïve FBI agent in a whimsical romp through exotic European and South American locales.
The plot is simultaneously predictable and crazy complicated. So here’s my attempt to explain it.
There are three “Cleopatra Eggs,” which were gifts from Marc Antony to Cleopatra, which over 2,000 years became scattered and lost. There are two art thieves simultaneously looking to collect these priceless relics: Ryan and a shadowy figure known as The Bishop. After the opening narration explaining the Eggs, we go straight to the action where The Rock along with a team of Interpol and assorted law enforcement are arriving hopefully in time to prevent the first Egg from being stolen from a museum. This earns you one high energy chase scene.
Fortunately, it’s not merely a tiring chase movie. Shortly after that, the twists begin. The Egg and Ryan are apprehended but the Egg gets stolen along the way. The Rock is framed for stealing it and our protagonists find themselves in a “black site” prison in Russia. Don’t ask how that happens. It’s merely the first of some real improbable plot points.
Ryan and The Rock share a cell. The writer, Rawson Marshall Thurber, really tries capitalizing on Ryan’s tremendous skill for banter–Deadpool style. It mostly works since this movie’s audience is clearly intended to be the PG-13 demographic. Most quips are cute but not laughter worth. I will add that the bullfight scene banter is laugh out loud, though. Netflix knew this since it made it to the preview.
While in prison, we get to find out who The Bishop is. Shock! It’s Gal Gadot. She’s apparently hoodwinked everybody as part of her great plan to secure the Eggs. (Think: “Dr. Jones. Again we see there is nothing you can possess which I cannot take away. And you thought I’d given up.”)
And here begins the awkward, reluctant-partner-buddy action-comedy. We are treated to an evil oligarch villain, Nazi bunkers, Jumanji(?) and a little male bonding.
So to summarize this movie without spoilers, what we have here is a mishmash of Tango & Cash, Indiana Jones, Oceans 11, Lucky Number Slevin, and National Treasure with the tameness of a Disney Buena Vista production. And I’m not sure that these themes aren’t intentional.
All the loose ends tie up neatly with justice being served, the Eggs where they belong and the door wide-open for zany sequels.
Thurber seems to be an emerging writer/director whose previous work is TV episodes and movie shorts. His style strikes me as Sandler-ish. A bit light on substance and trying for more than he can accomplish (at this time, hopefully).
So I give Red Notice the Middle Aged Movie Review of “you won’t feel like you lost 90 minutes of your life”–check it out!
