Red Notice - Movie Review

Critics Score - 6 of 10

General Audience Score - 8 of 10

The mainstream action blockbusters are in short supply these days in a post Covid-19 world with theatres struggling to keep the doors open and many people hesitating before purchasing a movie pass. Amid this scary box office landscape, many studios are happy to just break even on huge films with massive bankrolls, allowing Netflix and other digital streaming services to swoop in a grab films for distribution online. That’s exactly what happened to Universal’s film Red Notice, the $200 million dollar film that Netflix acquired and dropped onto it’s streaming site on Nov. 12th. This con-man heist action/comedy is being advertised as a Wonder Woman, Deadpool and Maui from Moana collaboration, with fights, action and jokes aplenty. Cinephiles and film critics will see through this film within the first couple minutes and be shaking their heads through the duration, but this movie was not made for them. General audiences everywhere will enjoy the hell out of this movie, without looking through the lens of criticism, they’ll never Notice all the faults this film has, but there’s plenty of fun to be had, and Gadot in Red is a real wonder.

SYNOPSIS - This cop vs. con artist duel starts with a narrated tale of three priceless golden eggs that belonged to Cleopatra and went missing a couple millennia ago and only recently resurfaced. The eggs are being sought after by Nolan Booth (Ryan Reynolds) who attempts to steal the first one out of a museum in Rome, but Interpol inspector Das (Ritu Arya) and agent John Hartley (Dwayne Johnson) are the wiser about Nolan's plans and once John exposes the thief, a chase sequence results with Nolan escaping. But once Nolan returns to his home in Bali, John is there to rain on his parade and a swat team storms in to take the egg back, but when the swat team is packing everything up, Sarah (Gal Gadot) sneaks up and swaps the egg out again. After a job well done, back in Rome John is enjoying a drink at a bar when Inspector Das shows up and informs him that she called the U.S. intelligence and nobody by the name John Hartley works for the FBI. She arrests him and off to a russian prison he goes, cause apparently Russia is where all international criminals are sent. Guess who his cell mate is? Nolan and John must work together to escape and then steal the second egg from a rich guy and stop Sarah from getting all the eggs herself.

After all the pro and cons have been weighed, we've been able to enjoy almost two hours of staring at beautiful people doing semi-interesting things but with zero depth or meaning behind any of it. The film hits it's stride when Reynolds and Johnson must work together and Reynold’s humor and jokes combined with Johnson's dry tough guy attitude make for an amusing combination along the way of this light-hearted adventure. None of the twists, turns, backstabs or cons are knocking anybody out of their seats, and the screenplay is really rough at times, but the chemistry between Reynolds and Johnson is able to overshadow the movie's ridiculous premise and poor source material and their shenanigans and verbal exchanges are highly entertaining. While Gadot isn't utilized much in the film and her chemistry with either Reynolds or Johnson doesn't work well, the eye candy factor is undeniable. There's plenty this film doesn't do well, but you can sit back, switch your brain off for two hours and watch the stars come out to play in this made for the masses heist film.

SUMMARY - Red Notice is not great filmmaking, it’s a bunch of A list stars performing an uninspired screenplay with weak dialogue and a fair amount of humor mixed in, but this film doesn’t take itself too seriously and neither should you. It’s easy to criticize the film but easier to look past it’s faults, even if it’s dumb fun, you’ll Notice you can have a good time with these two schmucks and a lady in Red.