The Gray Man (2022)

[Eric Prime]

Discuss

[filmlover]

A mess that was clearly made just for the paychecks and the streaming numbers without even an ounce of creativity put into it. Seriously, what did so many talented people see in this other than money? And why, with a budget of about $200M, does the whole thing look like it cost all of $5?  Even the action scenes here are perfunctory and without much energy (despite the dizzying camerawork's attempt at injecting such into the proceedings throughout), which is astounding when you consider the Russo's work on their MCU movies (it also must be said that the people who have complained about the reckless nature of the past couple of Fast & Furious movies are gonna find plenty of issues with the almost certainly large amount of innocent civilians that must've perished here). The overqualified cast are basically stuck playing cardboard cutouts and not actual characters. Beyond the unusual sight at first of seeing Serious Actor Ryan Gosling headlining a movie like this, he doesn't appear to be slumming too much for a project that certainly must've paid well if nothing else. At least he doesn't embarrass himself like Chris Evans (sorry @Cap), who chews so much scenery that you start to wonder after a while if he's gonna literally throw up from eating too much. Ana de Armas was utilized better in her brief role in No Time to Die than she is here, while a good supporting cast that includes Billy Bob Thornton, Alfre Woodard, Jessica Henwick, hunk of the moment Rege-Jean Page, and young Once Upon a Time in Hollywood breakout Julia Butters mostly blends in with the background. The only truly nice thing I have to say about this is that at least it's not as bad as last year's Red Notice was...and that the Russo bros might want to get back in touch with King Kevin soon. C

[Taruseth]

I am sorry, but this was so awful I could only watch half yesterday and then turned it off. Today I watched the second half, didn't get better. Had some hope after the Prague fight scene, but even that was underwhelming - like bad Fast & Furious (and Fast & Furious is bad).

Spending 200m and then getting this, I am baffled.

The actors got sky high salary but I see nothing of that, the acting is bad. Both Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling were bad and they completely failed to make anything of the supporting cast.

 

The directing seemed so off (probably too busy with all the money they got), the fight scene in that firework thing was atrociously bad, no suspense, nothing. the plane flight was just badly done, looked weird and wrong through out all of it.

Prague and the castle fight were a bit better, but they still felt weird, like the editing and camera work was almost annoying to follow in both fights.

The story is uninteresting, am I supposed to want to follow it? To root for anything? Who thought, "Yes, this is it, $200m budget!" ?

The music did nothing. Proper usage of music is so important, the music fell flat through out the whole movie.

Different to @filmlover I found this worse than Red Notice.

Honestly? 

F

[Cap]

11 hours ago, filmlover said:

. At least he doesn't embarrass himself like Chris Evans (sorry @Cap), who chews so much scenery that you start to wonder after a while if he's gonna literally throw up from eating too much.

lmfao that sounds amazing. You know how much I love trash cinema. 
 

I have not seen it yet. SDCC and all. 

 

We are debating about if we want to go see it at the Cinemark today so that we can stare at his beautiful face on the big screen, or if we want to watch on Netflix so we can just Snark our way through it.

[filmlover]

5 minutes ago, Cap said:

lmfao that sounds amazing. You know how much I love trash cinema. 
 

I have not seen it yet. SDCC and all. 

 

We are debating about if we want to go see it at the Cinemark today so that we can stare at his beautiful face on the big screen, or if we want to watch on Netflix so we can just Snark our way through it.

tbh this is rather boring for the most part. It's best to just watch it on mute if staring at pretty people as they cause millions of dollars in property damage is what you're looking for. Get the sense all involved with its making would prefer it that way too.

[Cap]

4 hours ago, filmlover said:

tbh this is rather boring for the most part. It's best to just watch it on mute if staring at pretty people as they cause millions of dollars in property damage is what you're looking for. Get the sense all involved with its making would prefer it that way too.

 

 

 

 

 

[ddddeeee]

Evans was bad in this. So was Page. It's also the first time I've seen Ana de Armas and not fallen in love with her.

 

Bad movie.

[filmlover]

Not a great year for Ana between this and Deep Water (which remains an early frontrunner for Silliest Movie of 2022).

 

Pretty sure there's no bigger commentary on this movie's total lack of creative inspiration than the fact they brought on Shea Whigham, seemingly Hollywood's go-to actor for "abusive (fill in the blank)" supporting parts, to play...an abusive dad. Thank goodness I didn't see this in a theater so I could shout "oh come on" at my TV.

[MrPink]

Deep Water is hilarious. Had fun with that one.

 

This was...not good. There's no confidence in the story or characters so they just have an action scene that's frenetically edited every 3 minutes to try and keep your attention span.

[filmlover]

16 minutes ago, MrPink said:

Deep Water is hilarious. Had fun with that one.

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

Chris Evans is just not a good actor

 

Why do people want Rege as Bond when he has no screen presence

 

I love what Russos did with Marvel, even some of the sloppier elements action wise, but these last 2 movies are so directionless and disposable 

 

At least Gosling has Barbie next year!

[Cap]

this is not nearly as bad as people say it is, but it’s also not nearly as good as it be either. it’s just kind of there.
 

And y’all are nuts. Evans is the best thing in this. Absolutely hilarious chewing that scenery. The only person having ANY fun here. He ALMOST ALMOST wants me to see Burnsides in the MCU. Almost. 

 

[Taruseth]

1 hour ago, Cap said:

this is not nearly as bad as people say it is, but it’s also not nearly as good as it be either. it’s just kind of there.
 

And y’all are nuts. Evans is the best thing in this. Absolutely hilarious chewing that scenery. The only person having ANY fun here. He ALMOST ALMOST wants me to see Burnsides in the MCU. Almost. 

 

Looking through the audience reviews on roten most seem to like / love it.

 

Guess I am the odd one out. Feels like it wants to set up a new Bond / Bourne series, but that would mean it should convince you to watch a second one, this just doesn't do it, because it has no idea what it actually wants to be.

No, he isn't, there is nothing good in it, apart from when it was finally over. But glad you enjoyed it.

What would you rate it though?

[filmlover]

6 hours ago, Cap said:

And y’all are nuts. Evans is the best thing in this. Absolutely hilarious chewing that scenery. The only person having ANY fun here. He ALMOST ALMOST wants me to see Burnsides in the MCU. Almost. 

 

Julia Butters in The Gray Man pic.twitter.com/SUkP0p2I6f

— David Franklin (@davefranklin) July 23, 2022

[SnokesLegs]

This was terrible. It’s genuinely amazing how Netflix was able to spend so much money on this, hire so many talented people, and still make something that feels like it was created by one of those “I showed a bot 1 million hours of spy movies and this is the script” things.

 

The CGI was atrocious too, particularly in the plane explosion sequence which had zero tension to it thanks to it looking like a PS2-era cut scene. Really makes you appreciate what Tom Cruise does.

[Factcheck]

Chris Evans was hilarious. I liked this movie, ending was bad though.

[SnokesLegs]

29 minutes ago, Factcheck said:

Chris Evans was hilarious. I liked this movie, ending was bad though.

I will say that upon reflection, Chris Evans was the one bright spot of the film, he at least seemed to be having fun with it. Everyone else seemed like they’d received a different script that took itself too seriously.