28 years ago James Cameron‘s T2: Judgment Day delivered a classic high-velocity action sequence, set in a Los Angeles riverbed of concrete and chain-link fences, punctuated by shotgun blasts and physics-defying vehicle leaps. Robert Patrick‘s T-1000 in a sheared-off truck cab vs. Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s Terminator-on-a-Harley with Eddie Furlong hanging on for dear life. The action pushed the limits of natural law but audiences bought it because it was cyborg vs. cyborg.
In a just-posted trailer for Ang Lee‘s Gemini Man (and specifically between the :04 and :10 mark), there’s a vaguely similar high-speed sequence involving Will Smith‘s Henry Brogen vs. Smith’s “Junior” (i.e., himself as a young man), both on motorcycles and firing weapons at each other. What happens to Junior defies any standard of half-assed credulity, of course — action films have become increasingly hostile to the laws of physics over the last 20-plus years — and this time there’s no cyborg exception. The two Brogens might as well be in a Road Runner vs. Coyote cartoon.
The fact is that CG bullshit is detectable in every standout action moment in the Gemini Man trailer. It goes without saying that Ang Lee is no second-tier genre hack. He’s a serious, grade-A filmmaker, and it follows that I’d like very much to believe in each and every aspect of this visually ambitious thriller. But the trailer is telling me that’s not in the cards.
