The irreversible irruption of the runoff in our lives has put under the arm, in the long term, one of the lime and the other of the sand. The positive of new consumer habits involves the access to huge catalogs which, in addition to serving as speaker to new filmmakers —who, under other conditions, would have very difficult access to the traditional industry—allows us to give the green light to projects which, probably, would never have reached our retinas.
On the other side of the coin, there is the painful loss of what many call “the cinematic experience”. Something that goes far beyond the collective screening ritual and which translates into the viewing of feature films designed to be enjoyed in perfectly equipped cinemas in untreated rooms and on better or less well calibrated screens and a few centimeters of ordinary mortals.
It is precisely the greatest enemy of “The Unseen Agent”. Because the news of the Russo brothers, who landed as directors at Netflix after having turned the Marvel universe upside down with ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ there ‘End of Game’he serves us on a platterto a spectacular action-thriller loaded with stars – and strange subjects – whose technical and formal exposition would deserve much more than a theatrical release limited to one week.
Size Matters
You don’t have to be a student of the genre to see this ‘The Invisible Agent’ Doesn’t Invent the Wheel in Premise and Plot refers to. And it is that the adaptation of Mark Greaney’s novel, written with four hands by Joe Russo and Christopher Markus, is still a compendium of ideas and concepts seen a thousand times in homologous tapes such as those belonging to the sagas of ‘Bourne’, ‘007’ oh ‘Impossible mission’.
Agencies that operate in the shadows, relentless assassins, encrypted files that could defeat a country’s institutions… The list of platitudes is not short and reduces the potential for impact, but they are incorporated into a extremely fast story which sacrifices its spatial-temporal coherence to offer a gigantic dose of pure uncut pleasure in an international key.
However, “The Invisible Agent” has a few tricks up its sleeve that allow it to stare its competitors face to face, the first of which is its assortment of characters. Pleasantly surprising treatment of some protagonists and antagonists who they exude the charisma and differentiating nuance that the film needed to go beyond their clichés and which, in addition, balance the tone with a comic counterpoint which makes the whole thing superb.
If this atmosphere shines wonderfully on screen, it is thanks to the charisma of a cast extremely inspired and focused on the self-aware aspect that surrounds the story. This includes Ana de Armas – who continues to captivate as a hero after her time at “No Time to Die”— Billy Bob Thornton, Regé-Jean Page, Ryan Gosling and, above all, a raging Chris Evans who finds in his mustache his best weapon to steal the show.
But none of this would matter in the slightest without action to match the occasion and, thankfully, the 200 million budget injected into the production is perfectly reflected in electrifying sets that mine gold from the good hand of the Russo behind the cameras. In addition to the use of FPV drones which is in the wake – albeit from afar – of what has been seen in the ‘Ambulance’ of Michael Bay, the taste for practicality and waterfalls real elevates film to a new level.
Unfortunately, and despite impeccable photography by subject matter expert Stephen F. Windon —responsible for the final six episodes of the ‘Fast & Furious’ saga—, I ended up missing better fragmentation in the editing and above all a more explicit treatment of violence and according to the tonal setting and the force of certain of its passages — the blood, as a rule, is conspicuous by its absence —.
In the end, these are just small details that fail to eclipse one of the best Netflix Originals released to date. And actor with the essence of old school but molded from contemporary aesthetic and narrative sensibilities whose nature unjustly condemns it to mass consumption on TVs and tablets.