The Gray Man

The Gray Man has some impressive action sequences, but is such a lackluster film experience overall. Most of the action is bogged down by sloppy editing where a complete absence of proper lighting ruins whatever positives the film had going for it. The talented cast does what they can with their roles, but its not enough to make the film entertaining. Ana de Armas is mostly forgettable apart from shooting tranquilizer darts in guys butts and firing a rocket launcher a few times. Tedious and sluggish with punches and kicks and kills that barely satisfy, The Gray Man is a dead on arrival action thriller that squanders potential almost as often as Ryan Gosling chews gum.

Full Review: https://hubpages.com/entertainment/The-Gray-Man-2022-The-Yawn-Ultimatum

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"The Gray Man holds the energetic, over-the-top, explosive action from the Russo Brothers, which should be enough to entertain the vast majority of the audience throughout the admittedly generic, predictable screenplay. Excessive camera movement occasionally sabotages the fantastic fight choreography, but nothing that lasts too long.

Regardless of the valuable technical aspects, the success of this movie is inherently connected to the superb performances from a cast packed with chemistry. Ryan Gosling demonstrates that he knows how to play an action protagonist, Chris Evans clearly has tons of fun playing a "bad guy" full of personality, Ana de Armas captivates as the sidekick ba...

Well at least this latest Netflix effort gives us some eye candy in the form of the annoyingly ageless Ryan Gosling and a slightly hammy Chris Evans, but the rest of it is derivative even by their standards. We start with a young man being released from prison by "Fitzroy" (Tommy Lee Jones) so he can join an elite CIA hit squad. Named "Six" (Gosling), his first mission is straight out of the "Mechanic" (2011) only it's an erstwhile colleague that he is sent to eradicate. A task that proves remarkably simple but is accomplished not before, luckily for us, he is given a micro chip that illustrates his new boss "Carmichael" (an underwhelming Regé-Jean Page) is about as crooked as the day is long. There now ensues a series of long "John Wick" s...

Seing this as another run to the mill Netflix release should not keep your hopes up. Netflix is where mediocre goes to congreate to the masses. We have another spy action movie amongst us. Last one before this was Kate, that was another bland action-spy movie. This offers absolutely NOTHING new to the table. We seen every trick this movie offer before. Over-skilled agents. Clever coreographed fight scenes, Trick tactics, agents with no names, An agency who elimintaes their own agents, expendable kill teams, plenty conspiracies and tons of action. But i have to say i enjoy Gosling alone in this one. He plays it cool. Its just shame that he is backed up with a script littered with clichés from start to end. We also have Ana De Armas who ...

Anyone thinking the CIA is anything other than awful, should in my humble opinion, take a long look at their actual history.

Anyway, putting aside the predictable effort to set up this nasty little three letter acronym as virtuous, there's not a lot going on here.

Its your usual rather heavy handed, cruel, cynical, US action flick.

Exposition is polished but then it needs to be, because there's not a lot else on offer that I can see. Suffice to say, instantly watchable and just as forgettable.

So if you want simple action and can look past the not so subtle messaging, this is a marginally alright watch.

Overall : The big-budget, big stars, and big action felt more like a knockoff of other action franchises than a success in itself.

The Gray Man is the result of putting a Fast and Furious movie in a blender with Taken or John Wick and Michael Bay. The outrageous action and super cheesy dialogue try to take itself as a serious spy movie. Dont get me wrong-its not a bad movie. The fight choreography is pretty good, and the Gray Man boasts an impressive A-list cast. It is a decent generic action flick. But the goofiness of Chris Evans villain was almost at Batman & Robin levels. I really wanted to rate this movie a little higher (like a 3.5 of 5 or 7 of 10), but it just falls short.

It's good stuff, but ought to have been so much more.

'The Gray Man' features all the ingredients to have become a quality movie. Unfortunately, it is simply 'just' a watchable popcorn action flick. That's not necessarily a criticism in itself, it's just that I had hoped for far greater.

Ryan Gosling puts in an entertaining performance, his dynamic with youngster Julia Butters is reminiscent of his similar showing with Angourie Rice in 2016's '<a href="https://letterboxd.com/film/the-nice-guys/">The Nice Guys</a>'. Chris Evans and Ana de Armas are noteworthy positives alongside Gosling.

The worldwide vibe of the story is cool, while the action sequences - aside from one 'skydiving' scene - are satisfactory enough. I enjoyed the fil...