It's not great, and might have actually been an exercise to test and establish the visual effects, which come across as fairly mundane, but I'm fine with that, because the story should be the main thing, you should not be overlooking nonsense because of a technical accomplishment.

But the trailers for this movie made it seem moody and angst-ridden and full of existential naval gazing. Instead, what we got was a light Will Smith action film, that skimmed over suggestions of deeper characters. It wasn't nearly as "Long Night" dark and dim as I thought from the trailers, and they settled for telling us that Henry Brogan, the main character, is tired of his job as a military assassin, and just about ready to call it quits. Except it turns out he has been misled by his superiors into killing a person who was merely inconvenient, rather than an actual threat, and now the by-now archetypal "clean-up crews" who should make anyone turn down a job doing this sort of thing like it was a hot potato, are after him and anyone peripherally associated with him. Because you know someone is a threat to an elite, ripped killer by seeing them murder a bunch of doughy, balding middle-aged guys or callow youngsters. And when Henry is too good, another assassin is sent after him, which we know from the posters, trailers, and title, is another him. Except younger. So not so much "Gemini", really, because twins should be the same age, and the emphasis in the film is on the differences between the two men, how one is more experienced, for good and for ill.

Also, the younger Will Smith's name is "Junior." It's not a nickname, it's the only thing he's called. Except it later on turns out that he was raised as an ordinary kid, albeit with combat skills more of his curriculum than normal kid stuff. So why call him "Junior"? I could see his foster father addressing him as such, but not actually giving him a name doesn't make sense. Is he Foster Dad Junior or Henry Brogan Junior? Similarly, there is the Watsonian reason for "Gemini", which is the name of the paramilitary corporation which the bad guy operates, and through which Junior is employed. Although Henry has never had any connection to it, aside from having made the aquaintance of its boss when they were both in the service together. So why call it "Gemini" except for the Doylist reason to highlight the duplicates motif. Basically, people in the story made decisions to give a company a name based not on what their purpose is, but on the fact that one of their side projects would eventually involve cloning a soldier, and chose to call a child a non-standard name, while ostensibly trying to raise him as a normal person, to service a theme in a story they are not supposed to know they are a part of.

Attention, filmmakers: Stop trying to be all clever, especially if you aren't going to commit to making a psychological thriller, and just get to Will Smith fighting his younger clone, already! Especially when that was the interesting thing teased out of the underwhelming trailers and movie posters, so you aren't fooling anyone with this slow burn. Also, one of you is David Benioff. You are NOT clever.

But this was directed by Ang Lee, whose thing seems to be tricking audiences into theaters by promising them rage-monsters smashing stuff, topless Anne Hathaway, martial arts with a budget or a tiger in a lifeboat, and instead giving us daddy issues, CGI dog monsters, cowboy sodomy, wire stunts and slapstick mugging and...a tiger in a lifeboat. Turns out there's really no where to go with the last one. And here, he promises a joyless, tired, shadowy grappling with one's existence and mortality and inevitable replacement...and instead we get Will Smith trying to run himself over with a motorcycle. Basically a step up.

It seems like I'm down on this, but aside from stuff that doesn't make sense because they are trying to be clever and artsy (for which I am inclined to blame Lee, but then trying to be clever and failing in a plotholey way is more of Benioff's thing), it's pretty decent action and character interactions. Smith's performances as Henry & Junior, while not exactly ground-breaking or Oscar bait, work pretty good in creating two distinct people, with some aspects of their nature in common, but very different experiences and attitudes.

Also, Mary Elizabeth Winstead is in it, and it's an action movie in 2019, so she's got to have her tough girl moments, some of which are clearly imposed or shoehorned, but it doesn't derail the movie or undermine Henry's portrayal.