Ghosted review: Ana de Armas and Chris Evans fizzle in lackluster action-comedy
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Ghosted, available now on AppleTV+, is an apt name for a film given that it will haunt me forever for the ways in which it wastes its central talent.
Directed by Dexter Fletcher (Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocketman), Ghosted is a fish-out-of-water action comedy in the vein of Spy (divine) and The Spy Who Dumped Me (dismal). When farmer Cole Turner (Chris Evans) and CIA agent Sadie Rhodes (Ana de Armas) have a meet-cute over a cactus, the two are convinced they've found just what they're looking for — until Cole's attempt at a grand romantic gesture embroils them in a plot involving bio-weapons and international intrigue.
Courtesy of Apple Ana de Armas and Chris Evans in 'Ghosted'
It's a story we've seen many times before — Sadie's enemies capture Cole, believing that he is the "Tax Man," the moniker the arms dealers and other assorted bad guys have given Sadie. Cole has no idea what's happening (Sadie told him she was an art collector), and before he can make sense of anything, he's being tortured, shot at, and hauled across the world.
The conceit of getting to see Evans — who has spent the better part of his career kicking ass and saving the world as Captain America in the MCU — flounder his way through action sequences is a fun one. But it falls flat, particularly because Cole is not all that bad at fending for himself past the initial shock of what's happening. The film is littered with action set pieces — a car chase through the Pakistan mountains, a shootout on an airplane, a rotating restaurant face-off — but they all feel like they've been done before (and better) in the Mission: Impossible and James Bond franchises (the latter of which did use de Armas effectively). Fletcher is known for his operatic filming style, but every frame of Ghosted is predictable and dull.
The central problem with Ghosted, besides the flimsy script and the needle drops that are about five years too late to be cool, is that Evans and de Armas have no chemistry. In Knives Out, the two sparked as adversaries with ulterior motives, but here their romantic vibes are as hard to locate as someone who's ghosted you. Throughout the film, those around the two tell them to "get a room" as they bicker in what is supposed to be flirtatious banter. But their arguments never read as sexy or charged, so much as laced with genuine annoyance.
Courtesy of Apple Chris Evans and Ana de Armas in 'Ghosted'
A mid-plot carousel of cameos brings some amusement, but it's a sad state of affairs when your action rom-com has its best chemistry in the brief moment that Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) are reunited. Not to mention that a movie should never live or die by its cameos.
It's a real shame because both Evans and de Armas are real talents. Evans deserves a rom-com worthy of his charms, not one that forces him to deliver hamfisted jokes and build chemistry by jumping out of a plane.
Meanwhile, de Armas is wooden and rote. She's a gifted actress; look no further than Knives Out or Blonde (she's the only bright spot in an otherwise rancid picture) for proof of that. She is trussed up in a wig that is so ill-fitting it belongs in the Hollywood Bad Wig Hall of Fame alongside Julia Roberts' from Mother's Day and Barbara Stanwyck's in Double Indemnity. Sadie's only personality trait besides her skills as a spy is emotional reticence, and that makes it nigh impossible for her to generate any heat with Evans.
Adrien Brody also features as baddie Leveque, but even his prodigious talents are wasted. He adopts a vaguely European accent that is supposed to be French. The half-hearted accent tracks with the fact that he seems immensely bored in every scene. As with Evans and de Armas, this should've been an easy ace in the hole, considering the glee and aplomb with which he's previously portrayed men who range from morally ambiguous to literally mustache-twirling.
Courtesy of Apple Adrien Brody in 'Ghosted'
On paper, Ghosted should work. What's not to like about two beautiful people verbally sparring their way through a dangerous mission across the globe? But both Fletcher's direction and the script (by Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, Chris McKenna, and Erik Sommers, in what seems too many scribes in the kitchen scenario) give their talent nothing but anodyne, humdrum scenarios to work with.
I'd be more entertained watching the GIF of Chris Evans pulling apart a log on repeat for the running time of the movie. Despite a lot of great ingredients in the cocktail shaker, there's no amount of booze that can save Ghosted. D
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