Name: Ghosted
Director: Dexter Fletcher
Released: 2023-04-23T13:33:56

Ghosted is a romantic action-comedy film that follows Cole (Chris Evans), who travels to London to surprise Sadie (Ana de Armas), a girl he’s only met once. Unfortunately, she turns out to be a CIA agent, and Cole gets involved in a globe-trotting adventure to save the world. It is now streaming on Apple TV+.

Story

Cole is your average Joe who falls in love with the enigmatic Sadie. He’s a farmer with a stall at a farmer’s market, and she is grocery shopping when they cross paths.

After an elaborate date, they end up sleeping together, but Sadie ghosts him due to his romantically needy antics, and also because he bombards her with texts after.

With encouragement from his parents, he flies to London to surprise her and gets kidnapped by a bunch of illegal arms dealers. This is when Cole finds out that his latest flame is a CIA operative, on a dangerous mission to retrieve a biological weapon.

Performances

As great and charismatic Evans and de Armas are, the duo feels miscast in Ghosted. The roles are by far some of the easiest to play for them, but they barely have any chemistry.

After his hulking legacy as Captain America and his roles in Knives Out and The Grey Man, Chris Evans feels out of place playing a regular guy who farms for a living. His character has no skills for the high-octane action job and sticks out like a sore thumb.

Ana de Armas is cool and slick as Sadie, but has little room to showcase her actual acting chops.

Adrien Brody plays Leveque, the antagonist. The French accented villain is a typical former agent gone rogue and adds nothing special to the narrative. Unfortunately, Ghosted wastes its stellar cast.

Positives

Ghosted has an interesting premise and decent action sequences. The combat is fun to watch and doesn’t become too distracting with excessive jump cuts.

The film actually holds its own during the first 20 minutes when its just trying to be a romantic comedy. There is a slight spark between the leads, but it fizzles out as soon as it enters espionage action thriller territory.

There are surprise cameos by Anthony Mackie, John Cho, Sebastian Stan, and Ryan Reynolds. These short moments are some of the funniest bits in the film.

Negatives

Apart from its miscast leads, Ghosted is a generic action rom-com, riddled with plot holes and predictability. The writing is extremely one-dimensional and the direction does it no better.

The film tries to justify prioritising loved ones over a mission, and doesn’t go anywhere with it. It somehow tries to preach that saving one life is important over saving millions to push the plot.

Cole and Sadie just keep arguing throughout the film, and the makers would have us believe that there is sexual tension between them. Unfortunately, to the audience, it just feels like senseless bickering.

The visual effects are distracting, especially during the Khyber Pass sequence. You can tell that most of the film has been shot in front of a green screen, and the makers haven’t done a good job hiding it.

Verdict

Despite keeping expectations on the lower side, Ghosted still comes out as a rare miss for Apple TV+, despite a stellar cast. If you’re looking for a mindless binge, you may sit through the film, but it is best to ghost this one if you’re looking for quality content.