'The Gray Man' Review - Beware If You Don't Already Love Action Movies

Thanks to the popularity of Rotten Tomatoes, there is better awareness of the critic/audience discrepancy that has always existed since blockbuster movies began. The Gray Man, the newest Netflix feature from the directors of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, highlights the difference perfectly, with audiences shooing away the negative reviews to shine glowing praise on their new favorite film. Sadly, The Gray Man truly does not deserve the praise, and thanks to movies like John Wick, it's frankly hard to see exactly how this movie could top any of the critically acclaimed action flicks that now sit alongside vacant scripts like this one.

The Gray Man is played by Ryan Gosling, who while working as a covert assassin discovers secrets of the CIA liaison who handles him. This leads to the entire network of assassins around the globe pursuing him, including a sadistic former colleage.

• Ryan Gosling

• Chris Evans

• Ana De Armas

• Regé-Jean Page

• Billy Bob Thornton

• Jessica Henwick

We have all been spoiled by John Wick. Amazing style, epic world building, and perhaps the best action choreography of all time are contained in the three (soon to be five) films of the series. When you compare those films to The Gray Man, clearly something is missing. The script is way too involved and hackneyed, the proceedings just seem like an excuse for a new gorgeous locale, and the choreography is boring and frequently nonsensical in comparison to that acclaimed action series. For The Gray Man to truly embody the current hole of the James Bond series, it needed something more to draw us in. Try as Gosling, Evans, and De Armas might, they never make up for the script that gives us nothing.

Rating: 4/10

★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆

Check it out only on Netflix! It's a Netflix exclusive, and the streaming company really bet all their money on this one. Hopefully it works out!