Red Notice Review

December 22, 2021 at 6:27am
By Jason Stettner

Red Notice is a Netflix Original film that feels as though it was generated by an AI. It’s got a weird mix of random action, random set pieces and some predictable con thriller moments. It’s about these individuals that get paired up and essentially compete with one another for a special Easter Egg hunt, almost literally. There are of course some deeper things going on that might surprise some, but it’s fairly straight forward and just generally quite bland.

From the rather lackluster sets, to the complete lack of chemistry between the main leads. Once again, it feels like some algorithm selected this grouping and then just threw them together in a selection of silly scenarios. The leads, while quite big essentially have no spark that makes them intriguing. There’s Ryan Reynolds playing himself, I mean Nolan Booth.

Then there’s Dwayne Johnson playing himself, I mean John Hartley and then there’s Gal Gadot as The Bishop. I don’t know what was going on there, but she certainly lacks any sense of comedic timing and just seems out of place, perhaps even more so than the first two. This movie does have a bit of everything, from really specific product placement with many angles such as with a car to a random bullfighting scenario.

There’s a rather funny moment where the wetness ratio to how a character leaves the water which was funny and some almost random time skips in how everything progresses. It’s definitely a globetrotting sort of adventure, with happenstance scenarios thrusting the characters forward. It’s honestly just complete nonsense and I can’t believe this type of thing came together.

It’s just the sparkle of the cast that will probably draw folks in as there’s nothing of real substance here. It’s just a large blockbuster aiming to be as generic as possible. It feels like a lot of the experience wasn’t really that real, it came across as quite green screened. The acting certainly didn’t stand out and it’s hard to pick moments that were genuinely interesting to any degree. It’s just a chain of events in a very vanilla, boring take on the whole Ocean’s heist concept that we’ve seen done better ever so many times prior.

The Conclusion

Red Notice is something I would point to as generally being soulless, with its design having been generated by an AI instead of actually having anything resembling a heart of the touch of a human behind it. It really just hits popular buzzwords, or well the big names and thrusts them into the middle of a very casual heist scenario. It tries to do the whole buddy comedy type thing and it just feels awkward.

It’s Reynolds doing his whole annoying thing with dozens of quips being flung out with Johnson barely bouncing off of them. Match that with Gadot, being there and if you have quite the time. It’s good background noise I’d say, but it’s hard to sit there and actually be engaged with what you’re viewing. I guess I’ll be signed up for the sequel though, as that’s just how this sort of thing goes.

Red Notice Review at Home with Streamed Viewing
Content Access was Provided by Netflix

Rating Overall: 2.0