I know Netflix has been dropping a new movie every week this year, and I did put some of them on my Watchlist. But somehow, I haven’t gotten around to many of them. It’s not that I have no desire to see them. I actually do. I suspect that it is more like since these are Netflix movies, I know they probably aren’t going anywhere. Most of the movies I watch at home off various streaming services tends to be the ones where I suspect they won’t be around forever. Heck, HBO Max will tell me when a movie leaves the service at the end of any given month. Why rush to a Netflix movie?
But then something comes along like Red Notice, a movie with an A-list cast that would have certainly gone to theaters otherwise. That I can somehow make time for. Hey, it can’t be any worse than Thunder Force.
Apparently, Cleopatra, the long dead Queen of Egypt, once had three gold eggs, gifts from Marc Antony. They were scattered, with the third being in an unknown location. Art thief Nolan Booth (Ryan Reynolds) is out to steal one from a museum in Rome, but at that moment, Interpol is there along with visiting FBI profiler John Hartley (Dwayne Johnson). Though Booth initially gets away, he is soon arrested by Hartley thanks in part to a tip from the world’s greatest art thief, a woman known only as Bishop (Gal Gadot). However, Bishop then turns around and frames Hartley for the crime as well, getting both men tossed in the same Russian prison. Why are two men charged with robbing an Italian museum in a Russian prison? I must have missed something because I have no idea. It may be immaterial. See, an Egyptian billionaire is offering a large bounty for all three eggs as a gift for his daughter’s wedding, and Booth may be the only person on Earth who has any idea where the lost third egg is. It would seem the thing to do is get that third egg before Bishop does, and maybe in the process clearly Hartley’s name.
Obviously, this is easier said than done. As is standard in many Ryan Reynolds movies, he plays a man others find irritating who values a relationship far more than the other half does. However, he is despite appearances very good at his job. But Bishop acts more like some sort of chipper supervillain, someone who always seems to be one step ahead and enjoying herself the entire time. If anything, it does seem a little odd to see Hartley may be the one Dwayne Johnson character who at first can’t seem to handle himself in a fight. Regardless, Hartley and Booth bicker their way in numerous exotic locations as they try to beat Bishop to the different eggs.
So, this movie was more or less the textbook definition of “fine”. There wasn’t anything really wrong with it, but it likewise didn’t grab me as much as I had hoped it would. Some nice stunts, a few plot twists, even if I saw the big one at the end coming, and while I never really laughed out loud, it was at least a little amusing with Reynolds’s usual wisecracks playing off Johnson’s straightman character. There just didn’t seem to be anything really new on display.
If anything, I think the movie is trying to coast by on the strengths of the main cast’s onscreen charisma. Reynolds is doing his wisecracking goof whose talkative nature hides his overall competence again. The Rock is a stalwart hero who always makes for a good lead. Gadot can smirk and slink her way through various thefts and schemes, always seeming one step ahead because, c’mon, why wouldn’t she when the best competition she can get is the likes of Booth and Hartley? But at the same time, I can’t say anything really grabbed me. I suspect fans of heist movies or globetrotting adventure films will like this one. I thought it was fine and don’t really regret watching it, but I have seen this sort of thing done before and sometimes a lot better.
Grade: C+
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