‘RED NOTICE’ is an action comedy that combines The Scorpion King (Dwayne Johnson or The Rock), Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot.)
The movie revolves on an alleged legend about Marc Anthony giving Cleopatra three precious eggs with huge jewels as a wedding gift 2,000 years ago. The eggs got lost but two were found in 1907 and one is still missing.
Ryan Reynolds plays Nolan, an international art thief and cat burglar who does it just for the love of it. Dwayne Johnson is FBI Agent John Hartley, who’s assigned to team up with the Interpol about a planned robbery of one of Cleopatra’s eggs which is kept in a tightly guarded museum in Rome.
The museum’s head of security says they don’t have to worry as the egg remains intact but Hartley examines it and say it’s fake and the real egg has already been stolen. Nolan did get the egg and takes it with him to Bali. But Hartley apprehends him there and arrests him.
What they didn’t know is that Sarah (Gal Gadot), also known as the Bishop got to trick them and is able to get the real egg for herself.
From there, they compete again to get the second egg from an arms deadler in Spain, and finally, the third egg, which is in Argentina, but only after so many confounding twists and convoluted surprises in the plotting.
The film had a short run in theaters and was it immediately shown streaming on Netflix. U.S. critics had fun vilifying it and tearing it to pieces, as if they’re expecting it to be award worthy. But the action-comedy is really meant to be just a piece of escapist popcorn entertainment.
It’s derivative, all right, and reminds us of previous treasure-hunting or caper films like the Indiana Jones flicks, “National Treasure”, and even the very recent “Army of Thieves”. It has no pretensions of being arty or anything but it’s a lot of fun.
We enjoyed the witty banter between the three leads who all try to beat each other. And the fact that they are always trying to con or put one over the other can be quite amusing.
The film is also fast paced and takes you globe-trotting to various locations. We didn’t have serious expectations and it does work for us both us an action thriller and as a playful comedy.
The action stunts are marvelously cartoonish and the fight choreography is well staged. They don’t resort to toilet humor or obscene language like other action-comedies do.
It’s not bound to be a classic and it’s like candy with empty calories, but who cares?
Director Rawson Marshall Thurber (who has worked with The Rock before in “Skyscraper” and “Central Intelligence”) obviously has great faith in his lead performers who manage to pull off all the big-budgeted film despite its inconsistencies.
Ryan Reynolds gives his usual goofball performance. It’s Gal Gadot who seems to have had the most fun in the movie as she plays a scheming and shady bad-girl character that is so different from Diana Prince or Wonder Woman.
She even had a sultry dance number with The Rock although there doesn’t seem to be much chemistry between them. And yes, there’s a funny cameo by singer Ed Sheeran that might please his fans. Or even his detractors.
