Two of today’s hottest Hollywood stars, ‘Rocketman’ craftsman Dexter Fletcher in the director’s chair, a tried-and-tested buddy-action premise with refreshingly inverted gender roles: all the ingredients were there to make ‘Ghosted’ an entertaining spy fun.
Ultimately, the Apple production was quite a success on the company’s streaming platform, but very few people were excited about it. And ‘Ghosted’ even failed mercilessly with the critics (1.5 stars in the FILMSTARTS review and only 26 percent positive reviews on the aggregator site speak clear language here).
Looking back, even the lead actor and ex-Marvel star can see that there were problems with the execution of ‘Ghosted’. Chris Evans a, who, as a normal boy in the film, falls in love with a super spy (Ana de Armas) and ultimately has to save the world together with her: “In terms of viewing figures, it went well. The critics didn’t like him,” Evans explained in an interview with the magazine . “But the blame lies more with the film than with the audience’s taste. I think the interest is there if it’s done right. We could have done better.“
Ingredients hello, execution ugh
Given this insight, why did Chris Evans sign on for the film in the first place? That has (apart from a certain hefty compensation) to do with the above-mentioned ingredients that made the project seem promising on paper for former Captain America: “It felt like a movie I grew up with. A film that we don’t see that often these days.” According to Evans, viewers are still interested in such material, as evidenced by the aforementioned success.
But especially in a production of this size, it is sometimes only in the end result that it becomes apparent that many things do not fit together. The soulless ‘Ghosted’ suffers from boring action scenes and an aimless spy plot, which also undermines the chemistry between the two ‘Knives Out’ stars in the leading roles, which is so important for the success of the film, as stated in the film. review by FILMSTARTS author Sidney Schering is mentioned.
We can only hope that Chris Evans’ next streaming film will be more compelling. From October 27, 2023, he can be seen alongside “A Quiet Place” star Emily Blunt in the darkly humorous pharmaceutical drama “Pain Hustlers” on Netflix: