In “Red Notice” you have Ryan Reynolds doing the thing that he normally does, Gal Gadot does the thing she normally does, and Dwayne The Rock Johnson does the thing he normally does. If you’ve seen any of their previous movies, their trademark performance is copied and pasted here. Not necessarily a bad thing, all of them are great in the film, and if you liked their previous performances then you will like this too.

If you like Indiana Jones, “Ocean’s Eleven”, or even “National Treasure”, you will find elements from those movies here and you will probably enjoy at least some of it. “Red Notice” feigns originality by copying what industry experts knows audience’s already like.

This film essentially combines a bunch of things that have worked on their own in the past into one grand and expensive movie. It hits major genres and demographics, and is safe and inoffensive. The arrival of this film onto the streaming platform Netflix is perfect because this is the very definition of a casual at-home streaming movie. It’s quick, it’s good to look at, it’s not that hard to follow even if you keep looking at your phone, and it’s unabashedly entertaining. Hey, there might even be a sequel.

This movie really does try to check off all of the boxes, but there is little to no heart in any of it. There is also a lot of dumb stuff, some things just flat out don’t make any sense, but this is a mindless action movie after all and you aren’t meant to think all that much anyway.

That being said, the film works. If you want to see a casual mindless action movie from the comfort of your home, it doesn’t get more tailor made than this. If you know what you are going into and if you like the three actors then chances are that you will enjoy this movie.

There isn’t really anything wrong with any of this, and on some level I’m glad that a movie like this exists, but I just wish that it took some risks, tried something new, or at the very least was a bit smarter. But I guess any of these things would’ve broken the algorithm the film was trying to hit, and so it is what it is.

Director: Rawson Marshall Thurber
Screenplay: Rawson Marshall Thurber
Cinematography: Markus Forderer
Editing: Julian Clarke and Michael L. Sale
Music: Steve Jablonsky
Starring: Dwayne Johnson as John Hartley, Gal Gadot as The Bishop, Ryan Reynolds as Nolan Booth