What’s more concerning than any of this, though, is that the powers that be at Netflix put their heads together-using their advanced algorithms and personal data-and came to the conclusion that this is what will pull the masses in: A lifeless, impersonal movie with three great stars at their most lifeless and impersonal, is ultimately what will resonate with society the most. The film hops from beautiful location to beautiful location-a masquerade ball in Valencia, a jungle in Argentina, a wedding in Cairo, a cruise off the Cayman Islands-and yet everything looks impossibly sterile and uninspiring, donning a uniform, distinct color palette that looks like someone vomited baked beans all over the most beautiful cities in the world. Computer-generated imagery is abundant and looks unabashedly fake, which not only makes for flat, stale images, but also which makes one wonder what the studio spent that $200M budget on. Red Notice doesn’t even bother looking good. Perhaps what’s most impressive about Red Notice, then, is the fact that Thurber somehow manages to transform these beloved stars into charisma vacuums by turning them into perfunctory setpieces, just like the film’s implausible Nazi bunker or, God forbid, its CGI bull.
Johnson, Reynolds and Gadot aren’t usually without charisma-in fact, in some of their other movies, they are impossible to look away from. No, the larger issue here is that the characters seem bored with the film. All three act like they’re in their own movie-whether it’s Deadpool or Wonder Woman or Furious 7-and none seem to have gotten the memo that no one else is in that movie with them.īut this lack of magnetism doesn’t just result in boredom on the audience’s part. Gadot’s glaring lack of comedic timing clashes with Reynolds’ expertise in that area, and Johnson and Reynolds seem only minimally invested in one another, which makes the film’s quasi-buddy-cop undertone a hard sell. In fact, their intense lack of chemistry makes me suspect that their scenes are actually a composite of three people acting in different studios. When the three leads are together, one can’t help but wonder if they’ve ever been in the same room. Where does that leave the duo? They’ve got to break out of prison and take the relics for themselves, of course. But the two get outsmarted by femme fatale art thief The Bishop (Gal Gadot) and end up in prison while she attempts to snag the eggs for herself. The film follows FBI criminal profiler John Hartley (Dwayne Johnson), as he attempts to catch one of the world’s leading art thieves, Nolan Booth (Ryan Reynolds), who is on a mission to steal Cleopatra’s mythic sparkling eggs. What happens when Hollywood’s marquee trio has the combined charisma of a wet paper towel? This question is inadvertently posed by Red Notice, Netflix’s latest blockbuster, which is ripe with CGI and plays like it was written by one of those AI-trained bots-with this particular one having been fed hundreds of hours of soulless, money-wasting heist flicks. Stars: Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot, Ritu Arya, Chris Diamantopoulos Keep an eye out for an unsettling turn from Billy Zane as one of Carlton’s friends, and several unexpected plot twists in the pilot. While Kid is hilarious, True Story is definitely not. Things kick off when Kid checks into the Four Seasons in his hometown of Philadelphia, where he thinks he’ll be doing a few shows, hanging out with some old friends, and spending some quality time with his older (and often problematic) brother Carlton (Wesley Snipes). Kid’s entourage-including his manager Todd (Paul Adelstein), his bodyguard Herschel (Will Catlett), and his under-appreciated writer Billie (Tawny Newsome)-are all tasked with keeping Kid’s career and his image going strong.
In his first dramatic series role, Kevin Hart plays Kid, a famous comedian whose latest movie is about to cross the $1 billion dollar mark. Stars: Kevin Hart, Wesley Snipes, Tawny Newsome, Will Catlett, Paul Adelstein, Theo Rossi, Ash Santos, John Ales, Chris Diamantopoulos, Lauren London, Billy Zane
Here are the entries for November 29 of the most popular TV shows and movies on Netflix. The list of Netflix’s daily Top 10 Most Popular indicates an omnivorous appetite among the Netflix faithful, from reality shows to prestige TV, animated kids shows to docu-series of every stripe. With the advent of the Netflix Top 10, though, we can now get at least one little peek behind the curtain.
Even directors and showrunners have had a hard time gauging if what they’d put out into the world was reaching its intended audience. Netflix has been notoriously stingy with its data.