GHOSTED. Rom-com action flick starring Chris Evans and Ana de Armas [REVIEW]

One might expect that casting Ana de Armas, arguably Hollywood’s hottest name right now, as a CIA super agent co-starring the not-so-super agent Chris Evans is something that has to work. The more so that Dexter Fletcher, at least a solid craftsman, sat on the director’s chair of the romcom action flick Ghosted (a “perfect” translation of the original Ghosted), and experienced Craig Tex Barnett was responsible for the special effects. However, all this turned out to be insufficient to create a film with even trace amounts of character.

There was a potential. More than attractive actors in the lead roles, basically at the peak of their careers (with an obvious indication of de Armas), a large budget provided by Apple, and a script stuffed with spy-romantic action, with a not-so-surprise-again role reversal, where the female hero protects her partner from danger. Let’s face it: this is not the pinnacle of screenplay genius, but with a bit of dialogical invention it could be defended nicely. Except that he does not defend himself a bit: the character of Cole, the son of a farmer near Washington, is so caricatured that even Chris Evans, who plays him, does not seem to believe in him. The former wrestling farmer (of course, he can’t be completely defenseless!) often smiles beautifully, even more often amazes, all while making buttery eyes at the deadly Sadie, who turns out to be a CIA agent, although she said she is an art curator.

Before the real armageddon breaks out, in which the demonic (and necessarily foreign!) terrorist Leveque (grotesque Adrien Brody) intends to trade the world’s deadliest weapon, the two lovebirds spend the most magical several hours of their lives together. And it must be admitted that at this stage de Armas and Evans feel decent chemistry, but as soon as the action speeds up, the relationship of the main characters becomes artificial and uninteresting. Cole turns out to be more desperate than Ross in Friends and Ted in How I Met Your Mother put together, and Sadie swings between being a super agent and a fragile damsel in distress. The viewer is left to wonder whether the message of Randki, without reception, was supposed to be the classic girl power or perhaps the traditional statement about how a woman cannot live without a man.

The strong point of Fletcher’s film – it seems that the only one – are undoubtedly the fight scenes, the choreography of which sometimes resembles what we can see in contemporary classics of action cinema, such as John Wick or Nobody. The scene in the Pakistani bus or the grotesquely exaggerated final sequence deserves attention, during which I often grabbed my head. And although the dominant characteristic of the finale of Ghosted is exaggeration, it provides the expected dose of mindless entertainment, which Fletcher seems to be promising us from the beginning of the screening.

Ghosted is a star-studded action movie that tries to mix several genres but doesn’t succeed. Apple’s production is neither explosive enough to become one of the strongest action figures of the year, nor romantic or funny enough to appeal to rom-coms supporters. The whole thing is secondary and colorless, and the two main actors are most sorry for it – Ana de Armas went from an Oscar-nominated role to a commercial production that everyone will want to forget, while Chris Evans, a peasant full of charm, is still trying to find himself place in Hollywood after breaking up with Marvel. For none of them Ghosted will become an important entry in the CV.