the plot and script of “Gemini Man” are far from perfect. The screenplay lacks depth and does not match up with Lee’s talent shown in his previous works. Critics have been disappointed by the movie’s underwhelming camera work and its major issue with the premise. They certainly have a reason. Lee ends “Gemini Man” abruptly with an easy way out: The good guy kills the bad guy and the cloned young Junior returns to college under the loving care of his newfound father figure Henry. Compared to “Blade Runner 2049” (2017), a dystopian film which also has a near-future, sci-fi setting and addresses a similar moral dilemma with cloning, “Gemini Man” does a poorer job exploring questions related to identity, faith, technology and modernization. With all of its shortcomings considered, the movie currently holds a 25% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Beside problems with the screenplay, Lee’s ambition for technological innovation is at the center of the controversy. In fact, Lee started his bold visual experiment all the way back in 2012 with “Life of Pi”. Lee shot the movie around the three hardest-to-shoot elements — children, animals and water — with extensive use of computer-generated imagery (CGI). The experiment was a great success and won four Academy Awards including Best Director. After “Life of Pi,” pure CGI could not satisfy Lee, as he moved on to experiment with HFR technology in “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.” Like “Billy Lynn,” “Gemini Man” is also created using HFR. Lee abandons the conventional 24-frames-per-second for the quick succession of 120 images within the span of a second to create a more detailed texture. At five times the frame rate, there is very little motion blur,
which closely reflects the vision of human eyes. Lee sees the future of films in HFR (what he calls “the promise of digital cinema”), as he believes movies made with HFR can instantly give the audience a unique immersive feeling. The hyper realistic style of HFR movies also gives more intimacy to the movie, as in “Gemini Man” the audience can see more clearly how sweat and tears drip down from Henry and Junior. It is striking to see the landscape with every detail as Junior moves quickly during a motorcycle chase scene or the texture of water with every shade of blue as Henry falls into an underground spring in a catacomb. However, HFR does not work for everyone and some of the audience must think it’s too much to be forced to see every detail in every scene.