‘Ghosted’ review: Chris Evans and Ana De Armas highlight an action comedy that throws everything at the screen

ghostly is a caffeinated action comedy that tries too hard to be too many things and begins as a sweet, budding rom-com before drastically changing into a violent international espionage chase movie dominated by a constantly bickering couple. It’s one of those Hollywood movies that rarely slows down, throws everything at the wall and hopes something sticks.

It’s also the kind of large-scale concoction that lives or dies by the lure of its two big movie stars. In that respect, with a lovelorn Chris Evans defying his own Captain America Persona and the beautiful and smart, on-the-fly transfer Ana de Armas, we have a winning combination on camera as tense as the credibility of their instant association. They just want director Dexter Fletcher (rocket man) delayed it several times to do the one or two scenes where he Do looks less like a brief encounter with real people before the next big set piece makes it another Road Runner cartoon.

Essentially, it’s the kind of formula we’ve seen many times before, an unlikely pair fighting their way through heart-wrenching action as in romance the stone, the lost city, and even De Niro and Grodin in it midnight run

If you haven’t read the synopsis, don’t be wrong if you think this will basically become your standard on-screen romance. Evans as Cole Turner and de Armas as Sadie Rhodes “meet cute”, they clearly don’t like each other at a local Washington DC street fair, where she tries to buy one of Farmer Cole’s prized crops. When his colleague suggests that there was considerable sexual tension between them, he decides to track her down before her car leaves. One thing leads to another and before the day is over, the two end up in bed together before breaking up.

He is visibly beaten when he returns to the farm he runs for his family and tells father (Tate Donovan), mother (Amy Sedaris) and cynical sister Mattie (Lizze Broadway) that despite past mistakes, he believes that this is the ” one” is. . . He’s really a romantic, and as it turns out, an impulsive person who texted Sadie several times, including heart emojis, but got no response. Is she put off by his innocent pursuit? Is he “spooky”? Finally remembering that he somehow left his phone tracking device in her pocket, he checks her whereabouts on his iPhone (this is an Apple Original film, folks) and discovers that she’s in central London. What do you say? On a whim, a “romantic gesture” as he calls it, he decides to pack his things and fly to England to surprise her. If you buy it, you buy everything else that comes.

Once there, this rom-com takes a decidedly darker turn when Cole is ambushed, knocked out by sinister guys in the street, and wakes up in a torture chamber full of deadly bugs as the deadly Borislov (Tim Blake Nelson) threatens him with murderous horns unless he spits out a “password” he is convinced he has a weapon of mass destruction called the Aztec that their boss wants to sell to the highest bidder. Mistaken for a veteran agent known only as The Taxman, he almost dies until the masked CIA agent (who really Is Taxman) comes in guns blazing and kills the bad guys before grabbing Cole and revealing that she is in fact the one he only knew as Sadie.

The bickering and fighting only takes it to a higher level as the pair, now linked to Cole, must take it to exotic places like Afghanistan and Pakistan, a bounty now managed by Leveque (Adrien Brody),’ A menacing villain and black market weapons, exposed to both, Merchant becomes obsessed with getting this access code and killing The Taxman. He asks his creepy henchman Wagner for help.

Wild car chases, including one with a very colorful bus ride, fights and bangs, ejections from planes and more ensue as the action and stunts escalate and Cole engages in terrifying confrontations with death while Sadie just tries to save her job. Parachuting to a deserted island and more fighting leads back to DC and a confrontation at a towering revolving restaurant. There is no end to what they encounter, but everything will lead to a real one second Date?

Evans is actually quite amusing in a substitute where the man is the damsel in perpetual distress. He’s fun to watch and there’s the chemistry between him and De Armas that you’d expect since this is their third team-up after knife out And the gray man Only this time he’s a good guy. De Armas again shows that she is a natural when it comes to action roles and real screen presence. The rest of the cast is essentially one-dimensional, with Brody laying on top of the villain and acting like a new-age Snidely Whiplash. No one takes any of this seriously, a point emphasized by a series of stellar cameos that reinforce the idea that it’s all a big joke. By the way, these cameos, some of them with a clever connection to Evans, are the main highlights of the plot and are hilariously interspersed.

Check your brain at the door (or the couch in this case) and you’ll have a good time thanks to Evans and de Armas. Producers for the Apple Original Films production by Skydance are David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Don Granger, Jules Daly and Evans, along with Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (Deadpool, zombieland) who also wrote the frantic screenplay with Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers. It starts streaming on Apple TV+ on Friday.

Title: ghostly
Distributor: Apple Original Movies
Release date: April 21, 2023
Director: Dexter Fletcher
Screenwriters: Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers
Form: Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Adrien Brody, Mike Moh, Tate Donovan, Amy Sedaris, Lizze Broadway, Tim Blake Nelson, Anna Deavere Smith
Judge: PG-13
Time: 1 hour 56 minutes