'Ghosted' Review: Chris Evans and Ana de Armas Have No Chemistry In This Alleged "Romantic Comedy"
Ghosted doesn’t feel like an actual filmmaker directed it but as if it were constructed by an A.I. who recently learned what the word “content” means.
Man, what happened here? Ghosted had everything going for. It stars two great actors who have previously had incredible chemistry in Rian Johnson’s Knives Out leading their own movie: Chris Evans and Ana de Armas. The two were also in The Gray Man but weren’t necessarily on screen together for most of the runtime. It’s also directed by Dexter Fletcher, whose last film, Rocketman, is one of the greatest musical biopics ever made. What’s more, Deadpool writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, alongside Spider-Man: Homecoming writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, team up to bring the story to life.
So what the hell happened here? With the talent in front and behind the camera, you’d at least expect a competently shot, somewhat entertaining romantic action comedy with two stars who have previously proven themselves to be capable action and comedy stars. Evans became an action star by starring as Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, whilst de Armas proved her comedy chops in Knives Out and her action badassery through No Time to Die’s best scene. And yet, in Ghosted, they have ZERO chemistry together.
The movie tries to make us believe that farmer Cole Turner (Evans) magically falls in love with art curator Sadie (de Armas) after the two meet and don’t necessarily hit it off at a farmer’s market. What follows is one of the worst first acts I’ve seen in a movie in recent memory: shot and edited with the lethargic energy of a Hallmark movie. Evans is naturally charismatic, but he cannot appear genuinely enthused to be in this, alongside de Armas, who sleepwalks behind the most obvious wig you’ll see since Kate Mara in Fant4stic and a green screen for most of the time. Salvatore Totino’s dreadful cinematography keeps the entire background out of focus, whilst three, yes, THREE editors consistently cut to show the star who’s talking. There may be four to five moments where both actors are on-screen in the same frame, but they’re quickly cut by the same shot-reverse shot approach that makes you believe they weren’t on set together. Since the wig is so extensive, who knows?
However, Sadie is not an art curator but a CIA agent who rescues Cole after he is kidnapped from Borislov (Tim Blake Nelson whose horrible accent screams, “Get me outta here!”), mistakenly taking Cole as “The Taxman,” a CIA agent with the passcode for an explosive device named “Aztec.” The passcode is being tracked down by Leveque (Adrien Brody with another horrible accent), who vows to kill “The Taxman” (who is actually Sadie) and retrieve the passcode to…blow up the world? The movie doesn’t give a compelling reason for you to give a damn about what’s occurring on screen.
It’s even worse when you get to the action or espionage part of the film. None of the action sequences are fun to watch. There are flourishes of excitement here and there but are continuously bogged down by lazy fight choreography, inane editing, and dull cinematography. It almost feels like a parody of action movies you’d see on a Saturday Night Live sketch instead of a competently shot and constructed action comedy. There isn’t a single scene that doesn’t feel like it was crafted by artificial intelligence software like ChatGPT, which just understood the word “romantic comedy” and attempts its best to think what a romantic comedy could be. However, Artificial Intelligence does not understand human emotions and films with actual energy and human feeling. As much as the Russo Brothers want to sing the praises of AI in film, films that feel AI-generated seem completely fake, devoid of any legitimate human interactions and fun, which Ghosted severely lacks.
The film’s worst scene sums up everything wrong with Ghosted. I won’t spoil it, but it contains a slew of high-profile cameos, successively appearing from one star to the next. None of the stars feel like they legitimately enjoy being in this, even if it’s just for a fun appearance (or two). It’s even weirder when you realize that all these stars have worked with the leads in at least one project. This is the scene where everyone is supposed to have fun because the premise of that sequence sounds surprising and fun! Yet, with each subsequent star appearing, instances of excitement to see a great actor pop up for a brief second are replaced by a tired eye roll. When the final cameo appears during the film’s horrendously edited climax, it’s the nail in the coffin for Ghosted, which will never beat its “written and directed by ChatGPT” allegations.
What the hell happened to this movie? Dexter Fletcher made Rocketman. He could’ve been the man for the job, especially by wanting to flex his muscles to prove himself as a capable action director. He’s already shown himself to direct good comedies with Eddie the Eagle, and this could’ve been a terrific rom-com with two of the hottest stars working today. Instead, the only thing Ghosted achieves is a warning for all filmmakers to never kowtow to something that would resemble an AI-generated piece of “content.” Movies are made by humans who tell human stories, while adding their splashes of creativity that have continuously made it the greatest of all art forms. Never let artificial intelligence write a screenplay, because this will be the result.