Awww man. This was a bummer. I was having a grand dumb fun time in the first, I dunno, twenty minutes of this film. And I saw all the bad reviews here and on RT so I thought I was going to have to write one of those apologetic or defiant reviews. But then the movie just kind of kept on going… and going… and going. This movie needed an editor… and a script.

Red Notice stars Dwayne Johnson playing Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds doing his contractually obligated thing, and Gal Gadot playing a mysterious, sexy woman who randomly wanders into the movie whenever the Reynolds/Johnson schtick goes on too long. Some combination of these people are thieves and some are FBI agents and they are all chasing after three jeweled eggs once owned by Cleopatra.

This movie is ultimately just a chore to sit through. And I still thing it had potential…. not a lot but enough for some dumb fun. And maybe it would have got there with with 30-40 minutes cut out of its two hours. Or maybe it would have never worked because they might not have actually had a script. Probably in place of dialog, it just said “Let Hollywood Hot Shots Riff for Five Minutes” and they kept the second or third best takes from everyone.

And by the fifth or sixth or seventh or eighth double-cross (octeth-cross?), I ceased caring. Nothing mattered as far as characters or motivations goes. And certainly the action scenes started decent with some clever camera work and then just got very generic.

I’d have loved if the movie had winked at the camera to let us know everyone was in on the joke. But since Reynolds was the only fourth wall breaker and he kept doing it to cover up the generic script, that didn’t work at all. And it didn’t help Johnson was filming his own movie when not banteringly endlessly and annoying with Reynolds. Seriously, half the script must have been “And then they argue”. And then, yeah, Gal Gadot saunters in.

The film had potential and I’ll admit to chuckling a few times at some random riff Reynolds spouts off. But it’s just so scattershot that the infinite number of monkeys finally typed something funny for him to say and it worked (this is how I’m starting to imagine Reynolds’ brain). Too bad. It starts pretty fun… that’s something.

Score: 68