The Sunday Mail
Film Review
Tinashe Kusema
I HAVE to admit that after seeing Chris Evans put on the white and blue stripes of Captain America, it has become jarring to see the 41-year-old American actor play anything else.
It gets worse when you see him take up a role in a comedy, let alone play the damsel in distress role.
But that is what happens in “Ghosted” and he does a good job opposite the incomparable and fast-rising Ana de Armas.
Evans stars as Cole Turner, a romantically needy farmer, who meets the girl of his dreams Sadie (Armas) and the two share what he terms the perfect date as they go for coffee, stroll around, visit a museum and share things they have never told anyone.
Once the date is over, Sadie disappears for days during which Turner anxiously awaits a call or return of any of his 11 messages and emojis.
As any desperate-for-love person would do, Turner decides to surprise his supposed partner in London by tracking her down through the use of an asthma inhaler he forgot in her purse.
Upon his arrival, Turner gets mistaken for a super talented and secret Central Intelligence Agency agent known by the handle “The Taxman”, forcing the real super spy (Armas’ Sadie) out of hiding to save him.
The two then get sucked into a cat-and-mouse game with a gang of arms dealers hell-bent on extracting the passcode for a bio-weapon known as “Aztec”, which they hope to sell on the black market.
The leader of the gang also puts a bounty on the two to the tune of US$10 million, meaning the two lovebirds now have to also contend with every bounty hunter on the market.
It is a wholesome good entertainment during which Evans and Armas’ acting chops and chemistry shine and drive the movie.
The writers, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, also deserve a lot of credit as the dialogue among the characters in the movie is really up there.
This straight-to-stream Apple movie does not take itself too seriously and this gives the writers room to play around with the humour. While there are not a lot of running gags, the constant bickering between Evans and Armas’ characters see numerous characters throughout the movie point out their blatant chemistry.
The action is very serviceable and Armas carries a huge chunk of the weight with aplomb.
While Adrien Brody’s Leveque character is a one-dimensional antagonist, it is just good to see the 50-year-old Queens native back on the big screen again.
Also, there are plenty of Easter eggs scattered throughout the film, with the best being a not-so-surprise appearance by Marvel’s Holy Trinity.
For those not in the know, the Holy Trinity refers to Marvel’s Captain America, The Winter Soldier and The Falcon, played by Evans, Sebastian Stan and Anthony Mackie, respectively.
Mackie and Stan make cameo appearances in the movie and all three characters share the screen in one of those blink-and-you-miss-it moments.
