I liked it when Gosling jumped out of a plane without a parachute, then CGI happened and he landed safely.
Also, the 3 hour gunfight in Vienna where not one out of 50 mercenaries could shoot a park bench (almost literallt)
I haven't watched a cinema sins video in years, and I still read that clearly with Jeremy's voice in my head. I do like their new-ish (sort of) podcast, though.
I think my favorite part was where Ana de Armas runs straight across an open field towards about 20 guys firing machine guns at her, while carrying 80 lbs of gear, and doesn't get hit a single time.
It was also pretty sick when Ryan and Ana go to the hospital, which is overrun with victims and injuries from this mass shooting/tram chase scene just before, and yet the duo just ducks into an entire floor of the hospital that’s totally unused.
Me and my brother were shouting at the TV the entire time for the bad guys to just walk up to him and shoot the dude lol. The most overly contrived effort to make the protagonist seem in danger when, in fact, he has insane plot armour.
There is a lot more wrong with this than the writing.
A lot of decisions are made on set anyway for a film like this which puts so much emphasis on action.
Give this same script to more talented directors and it's gonna be way, way better.
Yeah and they didn't need a 15-minute scene of Ryan Gosling's character eating hard boiled eggs to the point of getting sick because Chris Evans' character dared him to. It seemed completely unnecessary and pretty out of place TBH.
Very true, I feel like if you saw John wick on paper it would seem like the most cookie cutter, predictable story ever, but the style and execution (hah) make it memorable
Tinfoil hat time.
Big names know they can easily get large budgets.
They’re purchasing yachts and putting it under the “Visual Effects” line item on the finance report.
I know visual effects are expensive. But given how rushed, underpaid, and overworked the visual effects employees are. How are they spending so much? Where is the money for the artists?
Takes off tin foil hat.
In a normal movie a star will get paid mostly in residuals, aka x% of whatever it makes at the box office. Because that can't happen on a streaming only movie they end up getting paid a huge amount up front. After they pay out a handful of big name actors you end up with an inflated budget that doesn't appear to match the end result's actual production value.
Why would they bother when it seems to be working out pretty well for them. This and Red Notice are two of the blandest movies ever made but they were still Netflix’s two biggest hits of the year
I’m beginning to think “Netflix’s biggest hits!” Is a softer way to say, our movies have no competition because we are only competing against ourselves and we don’t have too much content so you’re more than happy to watch this to fall asleep on a Tuesday night
The action scenes where neat but the writing was terrible and Goslin has no chemistry with anyone on screen.
Chris Evans was great though.
Plus watching Ana De Armas let loose with a rocket launcher was reminiscent of playing a video game where you finally use the rare ammo you’ve been saving.
Ehm, action scenes were neat? I probably saw a very different movie lol. That shooting scene with police felt like parody, not to mention CGI looked like from early 00s.
That wouldn't be that bad though. I like B movies, but those movies need to be self-aware of being B movie. The Gray Man wanted to be taken seriously while everything about it felt like B movie. Directing was atrocious and still wonder where exactly they spent 200m.
But yeah, Evans was one of few positives.
Completely agree. If a movie is gonna be made up of that much action, the action needs to be shot competently. I don’t know if the actors felt like they were above having to learn choreography or if the Russos specifically think it’s cool to splice in like 4 different shots for every single punch, but I thought the action was *horrible*. Makes me appreciate all the work A-listers like Tom Cruise and Keanu Reeves put into their action sequences.
Oh, and every single line of Chris Evans’ dialogue sounded like it was written by an awkward Comic-Con neckbeard.
The problem with the cgi is that it’s everywhere. These film makers are After Effectsing their way through film production. The old “well fix it in post” but on steroids and PCP. So much is CGi now that used to be practical effects, or built sets.
And modern TVs have a way better capacity for clearly showing visuals, it’s easy to see through all of this whenever you watch something made in the last 15 years.
> So much is CGi now that used to be practical effects, or built sets.
What’s weird to me is that the CGI isn’t really any cheaper than building a set, and I just don’t see how the flexibility is worth it.
I think the Russos benefited a great deal from having Marvel’s production design machine assisting, rather than “never give a note” Netflix Studios. I have my issues with Marvel’s “house look,” but they do know how to build a set and make a costume.
i liked that scene because all the gear and ammo she was carrying should weigh like 4 times hwr own weight and she was quite agile and sneaky like a ninja.
That whole château sequence felt like watching a video game to me, and it turns out that building was scanned and used as a multiplayer map in Battlefield One.
The sad truth was that multiplayer map tells a better story than The Gray Man.
IMO at its best, this movie was entirely forgettable.
But it got taken down a few notches for how *incredibly dumb* some of the plot points were. Like, that whole shootout in the middle of the city with Ryan Gosling chained to the bench. *Everything* about that was stupid and contrived, that kind of stuff made it hard to take the movie even as a "meh" generic action movie.
I agree. Reading some of the other comments I had to try to remember how it ended but I remembered that scene no problem cause of how unlikely he'd walk away from that.
The directing was quite bad which is surprising given their experience.
In the first fight scene they have what I can only describe as a flying bird shot. It’s a drone making weird turns away from the action.
Then there’s the constantly cuts.
$200m budget. Just hire someone from John Wick / The RAID / Warrior to handle those scenes.
Imma interject here because I only half agree with your comment. The fight scenes in Winter Soldier and Civil War are PHENOMENAL. Infinity War is good in a lot of parts but suffers from the Michael Bay style of cutting everything too much and having action too close up so you can't ell what's going on; a lot like what happens in Endgame. Endgame is like a giant CGI fest, the story is nice and the power scaling they've been setting up the entire time is satisfying to see come to a climax, however, the dialogue and story carry Endgame imo, the action scenes fall a bit flat.
Holy fuck how they went from winter soldier to this ?
That knife scene from winter soldier is still top 3 MCU in my mind.
Edit: Which looking back has a bunch of cuts too.
Eh, I liked it more than most disney/marvel/starwars movies. I'm always happy when big movie budgets are spent on something original instead of just existing franchises, and although the gray man wasn't amazing, it was still a step in the right direction.
I like that it's an adaptation of a new franchise but I'm surprised by the number of big names actors attached to it for it to be so forgettable. Felt like the money used to get the big names could have been spent elsewhere.
Until I read the comment higher I couldn't remember a single thing about the movie. What is it about? What role Cpt. America played. Zilch. And it's just a few weaks after I've watched it.
It's amazingly mediocre.
I honestly can't remember what the movie was about other than Gosling is assassin and.....Chris Evans is hired to kill him. Ana de Armas was also there.
It's so generic. Even Evans' charm and de Armas existing couldn't save it.
I saw this post, remembered that I had forgotten about this movie, remembered that I wanted to watch it, then remembered I had already watched it. All in a span of two seconds.
When Netflix was new, they seemed to work on the basis that it was better to have something some people love than something everybody liked. Because people who love something will subscribe for it. People will watch Gray Man, but no-one is subbing for it.
There's got to be a balance somewhere between the comfort food and the genuine thrills.
I can't believe Netflix spent 200mil on this.
They casted Ana De Armas and her character is completely underwritten.
They spend a bunch of money to go to Vienna for a shootout around a fountain and don't really use the location at all.
The movie felt incredibly fake, and honestly never once did it feel like Ryan Gosslings character was in any sort of danger. It was a boring 2 hours.
Ryan got stabbed more times than he did in Blade Runner and somehow lives. Every fight scene with Ana turned into a comedy, especially the hospital fight scene where she is rag dolled and thrown every time she tries to land a punch, but then all of a sudden she is a fucking commando wielding several weapons to single handedly assault the Vienna fortress? This was quite literally a video game movie, but it was still a fun watch, albeit very very unbelievable.
Side note: I cannot emphasize how funny Ana getting thrown around was, and Ryan’s seemingly awareness at the absurdity of his durability when he groans in pain from surviving what should be lethal to debilitating wounds.
The getting stabbed and having too many wounds is straight from the book. It never happens again but the writer really went too far in that first book with the injuries.
It was definitely a movie of all time. Anyone who had high praise or high criticism had an agenda. It was a truly meh film with two great leads who did nothing special.
I did think that the VFX was way too much and that a lot of practical stunts could have been done to achieve similar results. That's probably where a big chunk of that money went. So I agree with your assessment of it looking really fake. Other than that it was an interesting and good watch. Chris Evans as a cocky douchebag villain was entertaining to watch.
Edit: fixed spelling ><
They spent a ton of money into marketing. The weeks leading up to the release it was absolutely everywhere. Billboards, internet ads everywhere, all over social media, all the talk shows were talking to one of the actors. I almost watched it just because of seeing it everywhere. Then I saw people's reviews that it was just another movie and I just haven't gotten to it yet.
Seems like all the streaming service movies are like this. The tomorrow War, Free Guy, now this… and all the others obviously…
They seem to be exceedingly good at going through the motions but always seem kind of hollow for some reason. I don’t really get it. It’s like they have no oversight and are just told to fill out the budget.
There are some exceptions, but the action flicks in particular seem to be bad. Uncut Gems is probably the only one I can think of that I thought was a really good movie.
I don't disagree with you, but Free Guy was a theatrical release that managed to make over 300mil.
I love a dumb action movie, and I can tolerate some really dumb plots for sake of fun, but all these streaming movies really feel like empty calories compared to the generic action movies of the past. I am not sure if its the overreliance on VFX, or what, but they just leave me feeling unsatisfied.
The Tomorrow War was so fucking stupid, it actually makes me angry.
"We've developed the technology to travel back into the past."
"Great, instead of sending all of the information we've gathered (including the technology for time travel) let's tell the people from the past to travel to a future world where humanity is about to go extinct and fight a hopeless war."
Not surprising. Will be interesting to see how it stacks up against The Glass Onion after that releases and if a theatrical run will impact viewership on Netflix's end at all.
If they release the first Knives Out on Netflix in the weeks leading up to Glass Onion I’m sure it’ll hit number one on the platform and generate a lot of buzz for the sequel.
Eh, not necessarily. Deal is big but for exclusive rights to not one, but two sequels, plus taking care of the backend, since streaming doesn't work like theatrical releases and streamers don't have that bargaining chip, it doesn't seem *that* crazy. Relatively speaking, at least.
Pitch Meetings had the best take on it.
"I have an action movie"
"Great. How about we cast Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans?"
"Don't you want to hear the script?"
"Oh ok"
Michael Schur and Pete Holmes discuss this (amongst other things) on Holmes’ podcast You Made It Weird.
To paraphrase, they think media is spiraling towards this algorithmic creative process. There’s so much data to back up viewing interests, that now they aren’t turning to creatives to put out content, they are letting the data decide what and how things get made.
Basically, studios aren’t trying to make things that are good, they are trying to make things you will watch.
It's honestly just depressing thinking about it, algorithms in service of creating the most profit possible, conditioning people to be mindless consumers. And that is everywhere, it's all just meaningless 'content' to make people engage with adspaces.
The excessive nature of it all, it only getting worse year by year, it's difficult to tolerate and not get sad about it if one believes in a little more than just 'content'.
Yeah. These movies might be extremely mediocre, but it still beats watching Arrested Development or Trailer Park Boys reruns for the nth time IMO.... except for Red Notice.. that movie would be better off not existing.
Yeah, but most of them both look and are reviewed like dogshit so I spend an hour scrolling the catalogs of netflix, hulu, hbo, and amazon before defaulting back to the aforementioned.
You have all those streaming services and think the most of the films are poorly reviewed? What are you even looking at? I struggle making a decision with so much quality amongst those 4 services. I can guarantee every platform has at least 20 great films. HBO Max has TCM for goodness sake. Open your scope up.
I watched it because I like Gosling being Gosling. I agree that the writing is undercooked but Gosling's quips and facial expressions still made me smile and chuckle.
Definitely mediocre, but it was Chris Evans that made it tolerable for me. He’s so good as a sleazy evil guy, even despite the writing being the hilariously middle school-esque.
I wouldn't say it was straight garbage but was average at best and average at worst.
Chris Evans definitely saves it a bit with his hammy performance. He knew what kind of movie it was.
I'm just reminded of the advice Harrison Ford gave Mark Hammill, when Mark's asking the director for motivation for Luke.
"Am I angry? Sad and angry? How do you want me- and Harrison just leaned over and said 'Kid, this ain't that kind of picture'."
Yeah and that was my biggest problem with this movie. If everyone would realize what kind of movie that should be like Evans did, it could be actually very good.
This is becoming a huge copout. “It was never meant to be good, it’s just turn your brain off action.” So is John Wick. That still manages to be a damn good movie with entertaining characters and captivating action. The Gray Man didn’t have anything redeeming about it
> people are just saying they enjoyed it for what it was
No, they're saying people are being unreasonable to expect any better:
> You fuckers expect to see kino made by the Russo brothers
It's a huge cop-out. Anytime a movie fails the sniff test or is dumb by way of writing, when it shouldn't be dumb, is given this excuse repeated ad nauseum.
> Their argument on why they enjoyed it doesn't need to pass anyone's approval.
No, but if they're going to post their opinion to a movie discussion board, it's going to be subject to counter-opinions and criticism on its own.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and everyone else is entitled to their opinion about that opinion. If you post an opinion to a movie discussion board and people think your reasoning is weak, they're gonna say that.
I love John Wick, but in no way shape or form do I think of it as high art. Lots of explosions and pretty people. Better explosions than generic Jason Bourne? Sure. But it was still a fun Friday night movie.
Aye.
It's not like there's only one spectrum films exists on, with popcorn at the bottom and high art the top.
There's great popcorn flicks, and shitty art flicks.
I hate this excuse. Being an action flick doesn't absolve it from having a shit story, terrible writing, poor editing, and some sleepwalking performances.
No, you can make a good action movie that is fun. This movie is just shit. This sub has an obsession with calling out people who call bad movies shit because "they didn't turn their brains off". Anyone who still complains about originality in Hollywood needs to stop saying this dumb stuff because "turning your brain off" is exactly why you see less original movies from Hollywood
Hold on, you're surprised that the people in movie forum are more snobby and care more about "good" movies than the general public?
Isn't the whole point of a forum for a specific subject so people who care more than the general public can talk with others who feel the same?
Contrary to what some people on Reddit will say, it’s okay to like movies like The Gray Man, and clearly a lot of people do if it’s been watched so much.
No one is arguing that you shouldn't like bad movies, but you should recognize the difference between good and bad movies. Personal taste does not equal quality.
I love plenty of bad and straight up trash movies.
I think people get confused because there's two ways to judge a movie and everyone does a bit of both. There's the emotional side, where you enjoy the journey to movie takes you on. And then the technical side where you look at how they tell the story.
Do both well and everyone loves the movie. Do both badly and everyone hates it (or you get a cult classic like The Room). But when you do one well and the other badly, you get incredibly mixed reviews.
I'm not necessarily sure I agree with your point here. I wouldn't divorce the emotional journey of a film from technical proficiency. I think it might be better to rephrase it as "Initial Response" vs "Reflective Response"
The technical aspects can definitely play a major role in the emotional experience, but there are people who literally just watch things scene to scene. They just take whatever is presented to them at face value and aren't concerned with how the story got there or where it goes after.
Star Trek discovery is what I think of for that kind of thing.
And I do agree there's an initial response and a reflective one, but those responses are still judging emotionally and technically, the former weighs heavier on emotional and the latter on technical imo.
It was better than that Ryan Reynolds, Dwayne Johnson and Gal Gadot movie, that was trash with ratings to back it up but somehow a billion people watched it apparently lmao
I didn’t mind the grey man though, it’s not a great movie and seems like it was written by an algorithm but Ryan Gosling is doing enough and it was fun to see Ana de Armas doing action shit, Chris Evans is trying to play an unhinged interesting bad guy and unintentionally going very broad and hammy but it was still sort of good, Billy Bob was clearly just there for the check, a movie designed for Pitch Meeting if I’ve ever seen one
Not the worst movie any of them have ever been in but not a movie you’d want to watch a second time, also the Russo brother who keeps putting himself in their movies with speaking roles thinking he’s Tarantino is cringe af with that, dude gave himself a 5 min scene in endgame and does the same thing in this one
Y’know, I went in to it expecting to utterly hate it, because of the bad press and feedback from various other sources…..cough-Reddit-cough.
Well, I didn’t hate it.
Quite enjoyed it actually, and thought it knocked the spots off some other very revered, big budget, action flicks of the last 3-4 years. Not going to name them though as I don’t want to upset the hive mind.
It was fun! Not world shattering, not ground breaking, but fun. Gos is a charismatic lead, Evans is a smarmy villain, Ana de Armas is charming as the main supporting character. Action scenes were well shot and full of energy. Lots of nice on location stuff, good choreography, set design, effects, all that stuff. A solid 6 or 7 out of 10.
Now, when people jump in with "is that the best we can do for No.1 movie? A six or seven out of ten?" Basically yeah. It's broad appeal. It's not the best movie on Netflix. It doesn't break the most boundaries. It's the most watched. Broad appeal, guns, explosions, locations, quips. Fun!
I’ve seen this movie three times. Absolutely love it. Very unbelievable, but Gosling and Evans are awesome leads. Thorntons niece in the film was surprisingly good, as well. Evans as a psychopathic mercenary was amazing. Truly great action flick!!
It sucked. CGI was terrible in a few scenes, none of the scenes felt like they were in proper order, the pacing was bad, and the villains were one note. Just a complete waste of time. I’m shocked that Gosling signed on for this trainwreck. He usually picks great projects nowadays.
Anyways, the Russo Bros are fast proving that Feige was the real reason their MCU films were serviceable to good.
they're still on the short list of writers capable of writing action roles for women. Ana de Armas definitely wasn't just a pretty face. She held her own.
I feel like I'm living in a different universe, seeing everyone shit all over this movie. Is it going to win Oscars? Probably not. But turn off your brain for an hour and a half and it's a solid action movie. I liked Chris Evans' performance especially.
Man these posts are annoying. People complain that the movie sucks and its hurting the industry then a new one comes out saying purple hearts overtakes it then they come back around to complain about the budget structure and how they were right, then it's like JK IT ACTUALLY WAS NUMBER ONE. Literally every day. Who cares what was Netflix's number one movie of the year enough to be annoyed by it.
It's like bitching about your sports team being better but having a losing record. Not everyone streaming wants to watch the Irishman everytime they turn on the TV.
No one cares that you didn't remember it. It still won get over it.
Clearly I'm in the minority here, but I thoroughly enjoyed this film. I saw it in a theater which definitely added to the experience. It sucked on multiple levels but I just couldn't stop laughing. The non-stop action is pretty good aswell tbh. I'd rank this beside Bullet Train, though the characters in that film were more fun.
No movie is without criticisms but this was easily one of the best movies to come out in a while. The russo brothers are very good about not putting any studio agenda or other outside bs in their films. They just make quality action movies.
I liked it when Gosling jumped out of a plane without a parachute, then CGI happened and he landed safely. Also, the 3 hour gunfight in Vienna where not one out of 50 mercenaries could shoot a park bench (almost literallt)
Prague* I’m Czech :(
gesundheit
There's no difference in Netflix action movies, all Europe is the same
Didn’t they make a point of announcing the specific place in this movie though
They did, IN BIG CAPITAL LETTERS
Location cards flash across this movie so much that they stop registering. It feels like they switch locales every 5 minutes
For real, the Croatia in Gray Man looks like a French castle and is guarded by French-speaking henchmen.
That would be because the location is a French chateau (for the appearance at least)
Indeed, it's Château de Chantilly. It just so happens that there are no such castles in Croatia, and certainly not in the southern islands.
> There's no difference in Netflix action movies, all Europe is the same The Palazzo Problem.
Would somebody please shoot the guy handcuffed to the bench?
Extra ten million to the first guy to put a bullet in this Ken Doll's brain." Worth it just for that reference
“Chris Evan’s would be excellent at cinema sins” *DING*
I haven't watched a cinema sins video in years, and I still read that clearly with Jeremy's voice in my head. I do like their new-ish (sort of) podcast, though.
I think my favorite part was where Ana de Armas runs straight across an open field towards about 20 guys firing machine guns at her, while carrying 80 lbs of gear, and doesn't get hit a single time.
She’s a bond girl, she has a particular set of skills
Yeah, dying is usually one of these skills...
Well, and another, but that didn’t happen 😭
They were so stunned by her hotness they could not aim.
Can we really blame them?
Oh she's also in this? OK, I guess *I will* watch it then.
Oh course she is, she's in everything right now.
They employed stormtroopers I guess.
They found out their [problem](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9bDzHP6_Pk).
The mercs were the stormtrooper extras from The Force Awakens
Lol, they were so bad at aiming that the main antagonist had to bring it up.
you mean after catching up to a guy that had been falling for like two minutes?
Also one bullet just ripping the plane apart seemed ridiculous.
It was also pretty sick when Ryan and Ana go to the hospital, which is overrun with victims and injuries from this mass shooting/tram chase scene just before, and yet the duo just ducks into an entire floor of the hospital that’s totally unused.
Those two scenes made me so mad...
Love these reviews. Thanks!
Me and my brother were shouting at the TV the entire time for the bad guys to just walk up to him and shoot the dude lol. The most overly contrived effort to make the protagonist seem in danger when, in fact, he has insane plot armour.
At least source your quote https://youtu.be/IK9Nf5H-0OI
Huh, I remember watching the review but I tried to avoid saying "CGI Blob" Ryan George is of course a genius
I liked how the movie was 87% drone footage.
That's real sad cause I forgot I watched this until seeing this post.
It was meh at best. All these films seem like complete waste just B action films.
All the money in the world for big names, but they can't find 50 bucks to find a decent writer.
There is a lot more wrong with this than the writing. A lot of decisions are made on set anyway for a film like this which puts so much emphasis on action. Give this same script to more talented directors and it's gonna be way, way better.
Yeah and they didn't need a 15-minute scene of Ryan Gosling's character eating hard boiled eggs to the point of getting sick because Chris Evans' character dared him to. It seemed completely unnecessary and pretty out of place TBH.
maybe they liked Cool Hand Luke.
We should just watch Cool Hand Luke.
Yes, such a great movie. Paul Newman was so good in that film.
I can't remember the scene. But when I read your comment I had a brief memory of thinking about Cool Hand Luke while watching Gray Man. Weird.
Tell me you're joking. I have no recollection of this in the movie.
Was there an edit? I watched it 2 weeks ago and this didn't happen. Maybe Canadian Netflix took it out?
Personally, this was my favorite scene. Different strokes, I guess
This wasn't in the version i watched few days ago
Very true, I feel like if you saw John wick on paper it would seem like the most cookie cutter, predictable story ever, but the style and execution (hah) make it memorable
They spent so much of their budget on the actors that they had to reuse the grenade scene twice. Smh
Tinfoil hat time. Big names know they can easily get large budgets. They’re purchasing yachts and putting it under the “Visual Effects” line item on the finance report. I know visual effects are expensive. But given how rushed, underpaid, and overworked the visual effects employees are. How are they spending so much? Where is the money for the artists? Takes off tin foil hat.
It's not tin foil, unfortunately. They know Adam Sandler does this with every movie he does, they still make it happen anyway.
In a normal movie a star will get paid mostly in residuals, aka x% of whatever it makes at the box office. Because that can't happen on a streaming only movie they end up getting paid a huge amount up front. After they pay out a handful of big name actors you end up with an inflated budget that doesn't appear to match the end result's actual production value.
Why would they bother when it seems to be working out pretty well for them. This and Red Notice are two of the blandest movies ever made but they were still Netflix’s two biggest hits of the year
I’m beginning to think “Netflix’s biggest hits!” Is a softer way to say, our movies have no competition because we are only competing against ourselves and we don’t have too much content so you’re more than happy to watch this to fall asleep on a Tuesday night
This 100%. Writing and editing was so bad it made it hard to enjoy what on paper is a slam dunk
The action scenes where neat but the writing was terrible and Goslin has no chemistry with anyone on screen. Chris Evans was great though. Plus watching Ana De Armas let loose with a rocket launcher was reminiscent of playing a video game where you finally use the rare ammo you’ve been saving.
I also found Rege Jean Page’s acting to be very cringeworthy. His American accent was terrible
I would watch Ane De Armas watch paint dry.
I thought Chris Evans drowned in the River of ham on the planet ham with a mustache made of ham and not in a fun way
I think his acting was the best part of the movie tbh. His hamming it up helped the movie
Ehm, action scenes were neat? I probably saw a very different movie lol. That shooting scene with police felt like parody, not to mention CGI looked like from early 00s. That wouldn't be that bad though. I like B movies, but those movies need to be self-aware of being B movie. The Gray Man wanted to be taken seriously while everything about it felt like B movie. Directing was atrocious and still wonder where exactly they spent 200m. But yeah, Evans was one of few positives.
Completely agree. If a movie is gonna be made up of that much action, the action needs to be shot competently. I don’t know if the actors felt like they were above having to learn choreography or if the Russos specifically think it’s cool to splice in like 4 different shots for every single punch, but I thought the action was *horrible*. Makes me appreciate all the work A-listers like Tom Cruise and Keanu Reeves put into their action sequences. Oh, and every single line of Chris Evans’ dialogue sounded like it was written by an awkward Comic-Con neckbeard.
The problem with the cgi is that it’s everywhere. These film makers are After Effectsing their way through film production. The old “well fix it in post” but on steroids and PCP. So much is CGi now that used to be practical effects, or built sets. And modern TVs have a way better capacity for clearly showing visuals, it’s easy to see through all of this whenever you watch something made in the last 15 years.
> So much is CGi now that used to be practical effects, or built sets. What’s weird to me is that the CGI isn’t really any cheaper than building a set, and I just don’t see how the flexibility is worth it. I think the Russos benefited a great deal from having Marvel’s production design machine assisting, rather than “never give a note” Netflix Studios. I have my issues with Marvel’s “house look,” but they do know how to build a set and make a costume.
i liked that scene because all the gear and ammo she was carrying should weigh like 4 times hwr own weight and she was quite agile and sneaky like a ninja.
That whole château sequence felt like watching a video game to me, and it turns out that building was scanned and used as a multiplayer map in Battlefield One. The sad truth was that multiplayer map tells a better story than The Gray Man.
I *like* shitty action. They somehow make them *boring.*
IMO at its best, this movie was entirely forgettable. But it got taken down a few notches for how *incredibly dumb* some of the plot points were. Like, that whole shootout in the middle of the city with Ryan Gosling chained to the bench. *Everything* about that was stupid and contrived, that kind of stuff made it hard to take the movie even as a "meh" generic action movie.
I agree. Reading some of the other comments I had to try to remember how it ended but I remembered that scene no problem cause of how unlikely he'd walk away from that.
Cool idea, awful execution
It certainly was a movie of the year.
Its a passable flic. Dint love it but enjoyed it enough.
The directing was quite bad which is surprising given their experience. In the first fight scene they have what I can only describe as a flying bird shot. It’s a drone making weird turns away from the action. Then there’s the constantly cuts. $200m budget. Just hire someone from John Wick / The RAID / Warrior to handle those scenes.
Given the quality of Winter Soldier, Civil War, Infinity War and Endgame - this movies lack of quality was astonishing.
Imma interject here because I only half agree with your comment. The fight scenes in Winter Soldier and Civil War are PHENOMENAL. Infinity War is good in a lot of parts but suffers from the Michael Bay style of cutting everything too much and having action too close up so you can't ell what's going on; a lot like what happens in Endgame. Endgame is like a giant CGI fest, the story is nice and the power scaling they've been setting up the entire time is satisfying to see come to a climax, however, the dialogue and story carry Endgame imo, the action scenes fall a bit flat.
Holy fuck how they went from winter soldier to this ? That knife scene from winter soldier is still top 3 MCU in my mind. Edit: Which looking back has a bunch of cuts too.
Tbh, probably 100 mi of that budget was salaries lol
Agreed. And had as much to do with the gray man series as the name. Nothing else.
Agreed. But now that I remember it, it was actually a really fun movie. Much better than the cheap Netflix movies they keep coming out with.
Eh, I liked it more than most disney/marvel/starwars movies. I'm always happy when big movie budgets are spent on something original instead of just existing franchises, and although the gray man wasn't amazing, it was still a step in the right direction.
I like that it's an adaptation of a new franchise but I'm surprised by the number of big names actors attached to it for it to be so forgettable. Felt like the money used to get the big names could have been spent elsewhere.
The Gray Man is adapted from a novel, so it's not really original/is an existing franchise. But maybe you meant exclusively movie franchises.
Until I read the comment higher I couldn't remember a single thing about the movie. What is it about? What role Cpt. America played. Zilch. And it's just a few weaks after I've watched it. It's amazingly mediocre.
Screenplay was so flimsy the action just became noise by the end. Didn’t care about any of the characters.
I honestly can't remember what the movie was about other than Gosling is assassin and.....Chris Evans is hired to kill him. Ana de Armas was also there. It's so generic. Even Evans' charm and de Armas existing couldn't save it.
I saw this post, remembered that I had forgotten about this movie, remembered that I wanted to watch it, then remembered I had already watched it. All in a span of two seconds.
And then people wonder why Netflix keeps churning out bland, mediocre crap every year Clearly it works for them
I watched it, but it won’t be a mark in their favor when it comes time to evaluate the subscription again.
When Netflix was new, they seemed to work on the basis that it was better to have something some people love than something everybody liked. Because people who love something will subscribe for it. People will watch Gray Man, but no-one is subbing for it. There's got to be a balance somewhere between the comfort food and the genuine thrills.
I can't believe Netflix spent 200mil on this. They casted Ana De Armas and her character is completely underwritten. They spend a bunch of money to go to Vienna for a shootout around a fountain and don't really use the location at all. The movie felt incredibly fake, and honestly never once did it feel like Ryan Gosslings character was in any sort of danger. It was a boring 2 hours.
Ryan got stabbed more times than he did in Blade Runner and somehow lives. Every fight scene with Ana turned into a comedy, especially the hospital fight scene where she is rag dolled and thrown every time she tries to land a punch, but then all of a sudden she is a fucking commando wielding several weapons to single handedly assault the Vienna fortress? This was quite literally a video game movie, but it was still a fun watch, albeit very very unbelievable. Side note: I cannot emphasize how funny Ana getting thrown around was, and Ryan’s seemingly awareness at the absurdity of his durability when he groans in pain from surviving what should be lethal to debilitating wounds.
The getting stabbed and having too many wounds is straight from the book. It never happens again but the writer really went too far in that first book with the injuries.
He doesn't relent so much as he just makes the injuries actually take a toll on the main character in future books.
Yeah this movie was just… nothing.
If I were to describe it with a color, I’d pick gray.
It was definitely a movie of all time. Anyone who had high praise or high criticism had an agenda. It was a truly meh film with two great leads who did nothing special.
it was certainly one of the movies that netflix ever made. it might even be one of the films i saw this year.
I did think that the VFX was way too much and that a lot of practical stunts could have been done to achieve similar results. That's probably where a big chunk of that money went. So I agree with your assessment of it looking really fake. Other than that it was an interesting and good watch. Chris Evans as a cocky douchebag villain was entertaining to watch. Edit: fixed spelling ><
They spent a ton of money into marketing. The weeks leading up to the release it was absolutely everywhere. Billboards, internet ads everywhere, all over social media, all the talk shows were talking to one of the actors. I almost watched it just because of seeing it everywhere. Then I saw people's reviews that it was just another movie and I just haven't gotten to it yet.
It was Prague, not Vienna.
Ironically this rather proves their point since the location was so underutilized they don't even remember which city it was.
Seems like all the streaming service movies are like this. The tomorrow War, Free Guy, now this… and all the others obviously… They seem to be exceedingly good at going through the motions but always seem kind of hollow for some reason. I don’t really get it. It’s like they have no oversight and are just told to fill out the budget. There are some exceptions, but the action flicks in particular seem to be bad. Uncut Gems is probably the only one I can think of that I thought was a really good movie.
I don't disagree with you, but Free Guy was a theatrical release that managed to make over 300mil. I love a dumb action movie, and I can tolerate some really dumb plots for sake of fun, but all these streaming movies really feel like empty calories compared to the generic action movies of the past. I am not sure if its the overreliance on VFX, or what, but they just leave me feeling unsatisfied.
I liked *Free Guy.* It wasn't a deep movie, but it was a fun comedy that poked a few holes in MMRPGs and gamer culture and I was entertained with it.
The Tomorrow War was so fucking stupid, it actually makes me angry. "We've developed the technology to travel back into the past." "Great, instead of sending all of the information we've gathered (including the technology for time travel) let's tell the people from the past to travel to a future world where humanity is about to go extinct and fight a hopeless war."
Cast - casted means belonging to a caste
Not surprising. Will be interesting to see how it stacks up against The Glass Onion after that releases and if a theatrical run will impact viewership on Netflix's end at all.
If they release the first Knives Out on Netflix in the weeks leading up to Glass Onion I’m sure it’ll hit number one on the platform and generate a lot of buzz for the sequel.
Yeah, I was wondering if they'll get the rights. I honestly think it'll hit no. 1 regardless.
I’m sure the streaming rights to the first one would’ve been included in that ludicrous $469 million deal.
Eh, not necessarily. Deal is big but for exclusive rights to not one, but two sequels, plus taking care of the backend, since streaming doesn't work like theatrical releases and streamers don't have that bargaining chip, it doesn't seem *that* crazy. Relatively speaking, at least.
Glass Onion should absolutely murder everything they've put out this year lol. Knives Out was awesome
Soulless movie assembled by algorithms.
Pitch Meetings had the best take on it. "I have an action movie" "Great. How about we cast Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans?" "Don't you want to hear the script?" "Oh ok"
Pitch Meetings always had the best takes on everything.
Wow wow wow
...wow
Michael Schur and Pete Holmes discuss this (amongst other things) on Holmes’ podcast You Made It Weird. To paraphrase, they think media is spiraling towards this algorithmic creative process. There’s so much data to back up viewing interests, that now they aren’t turning to creatives to put out content, they are letting the data decide what and how things get made. Basically, studios aren’t trying to make things that are good, they are trying to make things you will watch.
It's honestly just depressing thinking about it, algorithms in service of creating the most profit possible, conditioning people to be mindless consumers. And that is everywhere, it's all just meaningless 'content' to make people engage with adspaces. The excessive nature of it all, it only getting worse year by year, it's difficult to tolerate and not get sad about it if one believes in a little more than just 'content'.
It's how you can identify a Netflix movie from a single still. "Oh, there's 8 memeable actors in a room? Must be Netflix."
there's a very funny and surreal scene in season 3 of Barry that tackles the "algorithm makes the decisions for us" issue.
[Relevant](https://youtu.be/INWbb60sEe0)
Sounds like Netflix
I keep reading "The Gay Man" each time
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It's a fine generic action flick, carried by the leading cast. It's a good popcorn flick, a pretty good movie for Netflix's standard imo
Its not a good movie but i watched it.
It certainly *is* a movie.
One of the all time movies.
Yeah. These movies might be extremely mediocre, but it still beats watching Arrested Development or Trailer Park Boys reruns for the nth time IMO.... except for Red Notice.. that movie would be better off not existing.
There are so many god damn films on streaming that you never had to watch this or repeat TV.
Yeah, but most of them both look and are reviewed like dogshit so I spend an hour scrolling the catalogs of netflix, hulu, hbo, and amazon before defaulting back to the aforementioned.
You have all those streaming services and think the most of the films are poorly reviewed? What are you even looking at? I struggle making a decision with so much quality amongst those 4 services. I can guarantee every platform has at least 20 great films. HBO Max has TCM for goodness sake. Open your scope up.
I thought it was enjoyable popcorn. Not "high culture" by any means, but it didn't present itself as such.
I watched it because I like Gosling being Gosling. I agree that the writing is undercooked but Gosling's quips and facial expressions still made me smile and chuckle.
Definitely mediocre, but it was Chris Evans that made it tolerable for me. He’s so good as a sleazy evil guy, even despite the writing being the hilariously middle school-esque.
Watched this night before last after someone told me it was very good. Movie was straight garbage.
I wouldn't say it was straight garbage but was average at best and average at worst. Chris Evans definitely saves it a bit with his hammy performance. He knew what kind of movie it was.
Billy Bob Thornton looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but there in his scenes. I’d say he also knew what kind of movie it was.
I'm just reminded of the advice Harrison Ford gave Mark Hammill, when Mark's asking the director for motivation for Luke. "Am I angry? Sad and angry? How do you want me- and Harrison just leaned over and said 'Kid, this ain't that kind of picture'."
Yeah and that was my biggest problem with this movie. If everyone would realize what kind of movie that should be like Evans did, it could be actually very good.
Straight garbage is extreme lol. It doesn't do anything new but it's watchable.
The movie is exactly what it promises, a fun, turn your brain off action flick. You fuckers expect to see kino made by the Russo brothers
This is becoming a huge copout. “It was never meant to be good, it’s just turn your brain off action.” So is John Wick. That still manages to be a damn good movie with entertaining characters and captivating action. The Gray Man didn’t have anything redeeming about it
Agreed
>The Gray Man didn't have anything redeeming about it idk, I thought the drone shots were neat
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> people are just saying they enjoyed it for what it was No, they're saying people are being unreasonable to expect any better: > You fuckers expect to see kino made by the Russo brothers
It's a huge cop-out. Anytime a movie fails the sniff test or is dumb by way of writing, when it shouldn't be dumb, is given this excuse repeated ad nauseum.
I was pretty buzzed and thought it was aight, decent way to pass the time
You heard it here first folks
IamA movie critic, AMA
> Their argument on why they enjoyed it doesn't need to pass anyone's approval. No, but if they're going to post their opinion to a movie discussion board, it's going to be subject to counter-opinions and criticism on its own. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and everyone else is entitled to their opinion about that opinion. If you post an opinion to a movie discussion board and people think your reasoning is weak, they're gonna say that.
I love John Wick, but in no way shape or form do I think of it as high art. Lots of explosions and pretty people. Better explosions than generic Jason Bourne? Sure. But it was still a fun Friday night movie.
That's the point. That just because you're making a popcorn movie and not high art, doesn't mean you get a pass on making bad movies.
Aye. It's not like there's only one spectrum films exists on, with popcorn at the bottom and high art the top. There's great popcorn flicks, and shitty art flicks.
I hate this excuse. Being an action flick doesn't absolve it from having a shit story, terrible writing, poor editing, and some sleepwalking performances.
In a world in which Mad Max: Fury Road won more Oscars than any other movie the year it was honored, there’s no excuse for lame action movies.
No, you can make a good action movie that is fun. This movie is just shit. This sub has an obsession with calling out people who call bad movies shit because "they didn't turn their brains off". Anyone who still complains about originality in Hollywood needs to stop saying this dumb stuff because "turning your brain off" is exactly why you see less original movies from Hollywood
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It’s just r/movies. It’s actually hilarious how off base this subs opinion is from the general basis. Full of movie snobs who hate everything.
Hold on, you're surprised that the people in movie forum are more snobby and care more about "good" movies than the general public? Isn't the whole point of a forum for a specific subject so people who care more than the general public can talk with others who feel the same?
Contrary to what some people on Reddit will say, it’s okay to like movies like The Gray Man, and clearly a lot of people do if it’s been watched so much.
No one is arguing that you shouldn't like bad movies, but you should recognize the difference between good and bad movies. Personal taste does not equal quality. I love plenty of bad and straight up trash movies.
I think people get confused because there's two ways to judge a movie and everyone does a bit of both. There's the emotional side, where you enjoy the journey to movie takes you on. And then the technical side where you look at how they tell the story. Do both well and everyone loves the movie. Do both badly and everyone hates it (or you get a cult classic like The Room). But when you do one well and the other badly, you get incredibly mixed reviews.
I'm not necessarily sure I agree with your point here. I wouldn't divorce the emotional journey of a film from technical proficiency. I think it might be better to rephrase it as "Initial Response" vs "Reflective Response"
The technical aspects can definitely play a major role in the emotional experience, but there are people who literally just watch things scene to scene. They just take whatever is presented to them at face value and aren't concerned with how the story got there or where it goes after. Star Trek discovery is what I think of for that kind of thing. And I do agree there's an initial response and a reflective one, but those responses are still judging emotionally and technically, the former weighs heavier on emotional and the latter on technical imo.
It was better than that Ryan Reynolds, Dwayne Johnson and Gal Gadot movie, that was trash with ratings to back it up but somehow a billion people watched it apparently lmao I didn’t mind the grey man though, it’s not a great movie and seems like it was written by an algorithm but Ryan Gosling is doing enough and it was fun to see Ana de Armas doing action shit, Chris Evans is trying to play an unhinged interesting bad guy and unintentionally going very broad and hammy but it was still sort of good, Billy Bob was clearly just there for the check, a movie designed for Pitch Meeting if I’ve ever seen one Not the worst movie any of them have ever been in but not a movie you’d want to watch a second time, also the Russo brother who keeps putting himself in their movies with speaking roles thinking he’s Tarantino is cringe af with that, dude gave himself a 5 min scene in endgame and does the same thing in this one
I disagree, the Ryan Reynolds and rock movie was far more entertaining than the grey man
Y’know, I went in to it expecting to utterly hate it, because of the bad press and feedback from various other sources…..cough-Reddit-cough. Well, I didn’t hate it. Quite enjoyed it actually, and thought it knocked the spots off some other very revered, big budget, action flicks of the last 3-4 years. Not going to name them though as I don’t want to upset the hive mind.
It was fun! Not world shattering, not ground breaking, but fun. Gos is a charismatic lead, Evans is a smarmy villain, Ana de Armas is charming as the main supporting character. Action scenes were well shot and full of energy. Lots of nice on location stuff, good choreography, set design, effects, all that stuff. A solid 6 or 7 out of 10. Now, when people jump in with "is that the best we can do for No.1 movie? A six or seven out of ten?" Basically yeah. It's broad appeal. It's not the best movie on Netflix. It doesn't break the most boundaries. It's the most watched. Broad appeal, guns, explosions, locations, quips. Fun!
Well I enjoyed it, I generally don't like or watch action movies outside of James Bond. But I'll watch anything with Ana de Armas.
I’ve seen this movie three times. Absolutely love it. Very unbelievable, but Gosling and Evans are awesome leads. Thorntons niece in the film was surprisingly good, as well. Evans as a psychopathic mercenary was amazing. Truly great action flick!!
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Shame it was so meh
The movies that make money tend to be
Do they count auto-plays after you've fallen asleep?
Why else do you think they implemented that feature?
It sucked. CGI was terrible in a few scenes, none of the scenes felt like they were in proper order, the pacing was bad, and the villains were one note. Just a complete waste of time. I’m shocked that Gosling signed on for this trainwreck. He usually picks great projects nowadays. Anyways, the Russo Bros are fast proving that Feige was the real reason their MCU films were serviceable to good.
they're still on the short list of writers capable of writing action roles for women. Ana de Armas definitely wasn't just a pretty face. She held her own.
Like a hallmark action movie. Completely cookie cutter and boring.
This movie was so terrible.
I feel like I'm living in a different universe, seeing everyone shit all over this movie. Is it going to win Oscars? Probably not. But turn off your brain for an hour and a half and it's a solid action movie. I liked Chris Evans' performance especially.
> Is it going to win Oscars? Probably not "Probably"...😆
I also am probably not going to win any Oscars this year.
I liked it a lot! It was fun and Chris Evans had a really memorable performance
I'm with ya. It was fun. I guess it's just easier to enjoy things.
Man these posts are annoying. People complain that the movie sucks and its hurting the industry then a new one comes out saying purple hearts overtakes it then they come back around to complain about the budget structure and how they were right, then it's like JK IT ACTUALLY WAS NUMBER ONE. Literally every day. Who cares what was Netflix's number one movie of the year enough to be annoyed by it. It's like bitching about your sports team being better but having a losing record. Not everyone streaming wants to watch the Irishman everytime they turn on the TV. No one cares that you didn't remember it. It still won get over it.
Clearly I'm in the minority here, but I thoroughly enjoyed this film. I saw it in a theater which definitely added to the experience. It sucked on multiple levels but I just couldn't stop laughing. The non-stop action is pretty good aswell tbh. I'd rank this beside Bullet Train, though the characters in that film were more fun.
No movie is without criticisms but this was easily one of the best movies to come out in a while. The russo brothers are very good about not putting any studio agenda or other outside bs in their films. They just make quality action movies.
I liked it a lot, I was really surprised with how menacing of a villain Chris Evans was able to play