Movies No theaters in the US will show Gemini Man as it was meant to be seen

[HalfJoey]

I didnt like Hobbit in 3D HFR but I want to try out 120fps Gemini Man. My only issue is that HFR is not playing in my city... I make take a drive to Vegas just to see it in 120fps.

[Joe]

May be a stupid question but is the higher frame rate similar to that stupid motion thing all new TV's have these days?

[skillzdadirecta]

1 hour ago, Jose said:

May be a stupid question but is the higher frame rate similar to that stupid motion thing all new TV's have these days?

 

It gives a similar effect... first thing I do with new TV'S is turn that shit off.

[Joe]

8 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

 

It gives a similar effect... first thing I do with new TV'S is turn that shit off.

 

Same. I'm super sensitive to that crap and it drives me crazy.

[Keyser_Soze]

I liked to have it on to annoy people and liked the effect but when I switched TVs it didn't work for sporting events, like the picture would lag, also I'm pretty sure it led to some input lag in games so I turned it off for that reason.

[skillzdadirecta]

1 hour ago, Jose said:

 

Same. I'm super sensitive to that crap and it drives me crazy.

 

It's a gimmick... it's a software algorithm that creates the illusion of high frame rates by blending frames and fields for "smoother motion". It just ends up making movies look like old BBC television shows. It's jarring and I know plenty of people who had it on their TV's but didn't know how to turn it off and just left it on. I think their were so many complaints about it that newer HD TV's don't have it on by default anymore. I know some people who actually returned their TV'S because they hated the look.

[TwinIon]

14 hours ago, Jose said:

May be a stupid question but is the higher frame rate similar to that stupid motion thing all new TV's have these days?

Kinda. With motion smoothing you're taking a source at a lower frame rate and effectively inventing new filler frames to match the frame rate of the TV. 

 

High frame rate movies are actually captured at that frame rate, so no frames are invented. So some of that same feeling might exist, but there should be a clarity that is very different than what you get with smoothed frames.

 

3 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

It's a gimmick... it's a software algorithm that creates the illusion of high frame rates by blending frames and fields for "smoother motion". It just ends up making movies look like old BBC television shows. It's jarring and I know plenty of people who had it on their TV's but didn't know how to turn it off and just left it on. I think their were so many complaints about it that newer HD TV's don't have it on by default anymore. I know some people who actually returned their TV'S because they hated the look.

Filmmaker mode to the rescue!

[TwinIon]

I spent an extra hour in traffic to go see it in HFR (60fps 3D @2K) and I'm glad I did. Even without the full 120fps, I'm pretty bullish on the whole idea. At it's best, it really did feel like looking through a window. There was a sense of additional presence beyond what you get from a normal film that I really liked. When it worked well. When it didn't, it really exposed issues that probably don't exist or are minimal at 24fps. One advantage that Gemini Man had over the Hobbit is that they could often just shoot on location. Ang Lee didn't have to invent a whole fantasy world and lots of crazy props. You can just have Will Smith, laying in the grass, aiming a gun, and it looks real because it is real. 

 

When things aren't real, that's when the problems arise. I imagine that I would be hard pressed to pick out each time a digital stunt double was used in the last James Bond or John Wick movie, but I feel like I could probably nail every use in Gemini Man. It's hard to say if it was just a budget limitation or something that is just that much harder to fake in HFR, but that weightless feeling that bad effects have was so much more noticeable when it was used.

 

Which makes the occasional successes of Junior, Will Smith's younger digital double, even more impressive. Even in HFR 3D, there were times that you could forget that this was a wholly digital creation. It wasn't as consistent as the deaging in Captain Marvel, but I think it proves that digital doubles are ready for close ups. That said, it's far from perfect. Junior spends a lot of time in the uncanny valley, and camera placement was obviously trying to obscure him at crucial moments. (You will see a lot of the back of young Will Smith's head.)

 

I've only really talked about the effects of the film because that really is the primary draw of the film. If it's on Netflix in a couple months, sure, check it out, but it very much is the 90's era Bruckheimer production its script's history would suggest. The dialog is often heavy handed and a bit silly. Character motivations are hazy and emotional moments never seem to have the intended effect. Benedict Wong is a delightful sidekick, but doesn't get nearly enough to do. Will Smith outperforms the script, but it's not really enough to save the film from mediocrity. I believe in Ang Lee's vision for the future of film, and I commend him for pushing so hard, I just hope he can couple this high end technology with the quality of his earlier films.