Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds team up to take a big fat ‘paycheck’ from Netflix – and uninspiringly provide a formulaic action heist that has been seen so many times before.
But it’s just had the streamer’s biggest movie launch of all-time so that doesn’t seem to have mattered – just the star power headlining.
As points of reference this isn’t any better than the previous Johnson and director Rawson Marshall Thurber collaboration Skyscraper – and has the same buddy comedy tone of Reynolds’ The Hitman’s Bodyguard. The weaker sequel that is.
As a couple of hours of breezy – and death-free (lots of inexplicable bullet-dodging here) – weekend action entertainment for the family it just about ticks the boxes, and has a couple of surprise twists at least.
In Red Notice – the highest-level warrant issued by Interpol to hunt and capture the world’s most wanted criminals – we see Johnson’s top FBI agent John Hartley tracking Reynolds’ elusive art thief Nolan Booth.
But when they’re both double-crossed by Gal Gadot’s (Wonder Woman) sassy ‘even more famous than Booth’ art thief, known as ‘The Bishop’ – which leads to them ending up together in a Russian jail – they are forced to team up together to escape.
And then try and foil The Bishop’s plan to acquire all three of Cleopatra’s legendary priceless bejewelled eggs.
What ensues is predictable stuff, even though the chemistry between Johnson and Reynolds – who are still fairly good value – at least makes it noteworthy.
ESP Rating: 2.5/5
Gavin Miller
Netflix Exclusive, Out Now
Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds. Gal Gadot, Ritu Arya & Chris Diamantopoulos
Running Time: 1 Hr 58 Mins
Director: Rawson Marshall Thurber
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