Red Notice

2021, Rawson Marshall Thurber (Skyscraper) -- Netflix

What happens when you take a Ryan Reynolds vehicle for Netflix (failure: 6 Underground) and mash it with a The Rock vehicle for Netflix (OK, I want to say Hobbs & Shaw but it ain't) and add a dose of pumpkin spice latte, I mean, Gal Gadot? Well, in this version of the multiverse, you get Red Notice, which the trailer says is about FBI Agent John Hartley (Dwayne Johnson, Jumanji) teaming up with notorious art thief Nolan Booth (Ryan Reynolds, Deadpool) to capture another art thief, The Bishop (Gal Gadot, Fast & Furious) who has a red notice on her, basically a label for "the worst criminal ever, everybody AFTER HER !!" 

That is what the trailer says. Its a bit of a bait & switch. The movie is barely about the red notice. But they couldn't call it The Rock and Deadpool's Great Heist Day Out could they? Instead, we got the greatest of great popcorn movies, in that while I was watching I was thoroughly enjoying, as production budget and quips and great scenes and ever greater settings abounded. But then I burped and remembered how overly salted cinema pop corn really is.

So, basic premise is as above, but really its about Booth and Hartley chasing down three McGuffins -- booth even calls them McGuffins! They want to get them before the greatest art thief in the world ("second greatest!" yells Booth), the mysterious The Bishop, gets them. FBI: International tells us that the American national police force (the FBI) likes to send cowboys to other countries, where they have less than no jurisdiction, to catch Bad Guys, because... America. At least Hartley always has Interpol agent Das (Ritu Arya, The Umbrella Academy) always three steps behind him, remind him he has no jurisdiction, not that it stops him.

This movie is a mish-mashup of other genres and movie franchises wrapped into a standard heist flick. If Thurber does anything, is that he does a good job in keeping all these disparate elements coherent. They all really do seem to fit together in the movie. And that's a pretty big deal in these cheesy, popcorn action flicks these days, that are so prone to do things that just don't work, because the producer in purple had a great idea. I mean, they even steal scenes from Raiders of the Lost Ark without seeming too desperate for ideas. 

And, of course, Johnson and Reynolds have great antagonistic chemistry (Reynolds just loves playing difficult) that we cannot help but chuckle.

Wait a freaking second here, hold the horses, insert a record scratch. I started writing this post with full intent on saying This Was Not a Good Movie. Sure, it was not as astoundingly bad as 6 Underground but it was still pretty bad. I wanted to say that after the fact, after the burp, that I just did not enjoy it as much as I did while watching it. And yet, I forgave it a whole freaking lot. I should be whining more! I should be bitching more! I should be picking it apart more! But, I guess this is where we are, in that I had fun, despite Gal Gadot's sorely under utilized character and the entirely unneeded Shyamalan Twist at the end. Franchise wannabe's wanna be franchises. So yeah, I guess I got out of the movie what they wanted me to get out of the movie.