Director: Dexter Fletcher
Writers: Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, Chris McKenna, and Erik Sommers
Stars: Chris Evans, Ana de Arma, Adrien Brody
Synopsis: Cole falls head over heels for enigmatic Sadie, but then makes the shocking discovery that she’s a secret agent. Before they can decide on a second date, Cole and Sadie are swept away on an international adventure to save the world.
Let’s begin by analyzing some facts. Two screenwriting duos responsible for incredibly popular action-comedy sagas – Deadpool, Zombieland, MCU’s Spider-Man. A cast filled with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars – Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Adrien Brody, and countless eye-popping cameos. The director of Rocketman. One of the industry’s most coveted composers. I fondly remember the time when a film being produced by so many talented filmmakers and artists used to be a major positive factor in viewers’ expectations. Well, Ghosted is one of the biggest disasters of the last few years.
Many cinephiles defend the idea that the worst experience a movie can offer its audience is leaving them with nothing to think about. It’s often said something along the lines of it’s better to have a bad film that provokes some sort of reaction in the viewers than a movie that leaves them indifferent with nothing to discuss. Personally, films that leave me extremely frustrated due to wasted potential and talent are the ones that impact me the most negatively.
Ghosted had everything to be a great movie. Ideal conditions that some filmmakers look for their entire careers but don’t get. If this film was an original indie flick created by people we barely know or have never even heard of, with a minuscule budget, and only with the intention of following the filmmakers’ passion for cinema, I probably wouldn’t even be writing an article about it. However, when a movie is directed, written, produced, performed, shot, and composed by some of the most renowned Hollywood names working today, frustration takes hold of those who have just seen one of the worst films of the year.
The screenplay by Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, Chris McKenna, and Erik Sommers is arguably the primary disappointment of Ghosted, a movie that admittedly has an interesting premise and the potential to be an adventure packed with burst-out laughing moments and impressive action sequences. Unfortunately, when the only memorable scene in the entire film is related to an external aspect – continuous cameos that everyone knew in advance were going to happen – without any connection to the actual story…
It’s genuinely unfathomable to spend almost two hours without cracking a single smile from a script written by people who left entire audiences crying with laughter in previous flicks. Ghosted suffers from a glaring lack of originality, both in its generic, predictable, unsurprising narrative and in its jokes, which are at the level of that uncle who becomes looser after ingesting a certain amount of alcohol. Evans and Armas look like they’re performing for the first time, as both have issues delivering their lines convincingly.
It’s impossible to imagine that the respective cast is devoid of any chemistry, but the technical aspects of Ghosted are so unbelievably awful that they affect the performances of everyone involved. The editing from Chris Lebenzon, Jim May, and Josh Schaeffer is, without a doubt, the most significantly negative technical highlight. It totally ruins the action set pieces with incomprehensible cuts and turns simple dialogues into audiovisual chaos: characters talking with their mouths already closed and repeating movements they had already made in the previous frame are some of the most amateur mistakes one can make.
With an editing job like this, everything else falls apart. Salvatore Totino’s cinematography can’t focus on anything, although the fight choreography also seemed sluggish and unenthusiastic. The visual effects leave a lot to be desired, to the point of looking incomplete. The portion of the budget allocated to this department is unknown, but either it wasn’t enough or they rushed what should never be rushed. Finally, Lorne Balfe’s score is hardly noticeable since Ghosted is composed more of pop songs randomly scattered through the middle of the action than instrumental music.
The main storyline is loaded with plot conveniences, and even if the viewers turn their brains off during the whole runtime, some narrative points make so little sense that it’s hard to simply tolerate and accept the various illogical developments. A few years ago, I would have been genuinely surprised by Ghosted being such a monumental letdown. However, nowadays, this type of project gets greenlit more often than not, and the only true surprise is that I continue to fall into the trap of believing that these movies could be a good bet.
Ghosted is a tremendous catastrophe. When the only memorable moments of the entire film are the myriad cameos totally disconnected from the story itself, little else can be said about it. Visual effects, action, and script are a seriously shocking mess, to the point of affecting the performances and chemistry of a renowned cast. One of the worst editing works in recent years. One of the most prominent, frustrating wastes of talent in front of and behind the camera. Very far from the “so bad it’s good” status.
