For those unaware, “Gemini Man” is Ang Lee’s 2019 sci-fi thriller starring Will Smith playing himself as well as his digitally de-aged younger clone. /Film’s Chris Evangelista called it an “odd experiment,” and while many praised Smith’s talents on screen, the digital de-aging was distracting at best and uncanny at worst. De-aging technology can be pretty effective … as long as the characters are stationary. For now, though, body language is lost and the small, human subtleties of expression are smoothed out in ways that make performances feel wooden.
Admittedly, the tech has greatly improved since 2019, with films like “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” and “Avatar: The Way of Water” looking pretty seamless. Still, considering the time it takes for Miller to make his action epics, if the tech wasn’t where it needed to be at the start of production, he certainly wasn’t going to risk it being up to snuff by the time the film entered post-production.
“Gemini Man” at least had a narrative reason for the odd appearance, in that the younger clone was made specifically to be devoid of emotion or the ability to feel pain. But once an audience knows a character is digitally de-aged, the brain will instinctively try to look for all of the inconsistencies. Recasting instead of digitizing is also not inherently a downgrade. Joseph Gordon-Levitt was a fantastic young Bruce Willis in “Looper,” Ewan McGregor is Obi-Wan Kenobi for a generation, and Alex Essoe perfectly captured Shelley Duvall in “Doctor Sleep.” Miller made the right call to recast Theron with Anya Taylor-Joy, and now both women will have played a hand in giving life to one of the best action heroes to ever grace the big screen.
“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” arrives in theaters on May 24, 2024.
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