Red Notice Review: 5 Ups & 5 Downs

1. Not Enough Gal Gadot

Gal Gadot is easily the best part of the movie, so it's a shame that she ends up playing decisive second fiddle to Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds throughout.

For starters, she's absent from almost the entire first act, and even when she is integrated into the story, she basically appears and disappears out of the film on regular occasion.

Given that Gadot energises the movie whenever she shows up, it's a shame that she's off-screen for so much of it, ducking out for several too-long passages later on and taking her charm with her.

Johnson and Reynolds obviously aren't slouches in the charisma department, but the three-way dynamic really crackles with life while the conventional buddy-buddy vibe of Johnson and Reynolds' characters is more stale in its familiarity.

The first studio note for Red Notice 2 should simply be this: more Gal Gadot.

These issues accepted, though, Red Notice does just enough to deliver on basic expectations. Here's what it gets right...