Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 98 - Ghosted

On this episode, Barry and I display zero chemistry as we go globetrotting on a spy adventure searching for answers about the new Apple TV+ movie Ghosted, starring Ana de Armas and Chris Evans. Topics discussed include really bad movies, really bad movie stars, really bad streaming services and really bad decisions by streaming services. 

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 98 - Ghosted

Thanks for listening!

©2023

Ghosted: A Review – Apple TV+ Action Rom-Com Scrapes the Bottom of the Barrel

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!***

My Rating: ½ out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. Don’t even contemplate watching this stupid movie.

Ghosted, which premiered on Apple TV+ this past Friday, is an action rom-com starring Marilyn Monroe and Captain America…oops…I mean Ana de Armas and Chris Evans.

I feel conflicted in labeling the film an action romantic comedy because the action is decidedly derivative and dull, the romance flaccid and the comedy non-existent, but the film identifies itself as an action rom-com so I’m respecting its pronouns, so to speak.

The film does have a plot, although I’m not going to insult your intelligence by trying too hard to recount it as it’s so idiotic as to be insulting. The basics of it are that after a meet cute that isn’t cute, world-traveling woman-of-action Sadie (Ana de Armas) and needy, home body Cole (Chris Evans) have a whirlwind 24-hour romance, which is followed by a globe-hopping, fish-out-of-water, spy/action-adventure. It’s basically a Hallmark Movie with disturbing amounts of killing and some very bad action set pieces.

The film has a run time of 116 minutes that feel like 116 hours because the writing is an abomination, the acting atrocious and the action choreography and execution ridiculous. But besides that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln…oh…it was so bad that Mr. Lincoln would’ve shot himself in the head if John Wilkes Booth didn’t do him the favor first.

A major issue with Ghosted is that the core of the film is the relationship between Ana de Armas and Chris Evans, and they have absolutely zero chemistry. Although to be fair, this script is such crap that you could’ve put Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in this sack of shit and still would’ve stunk to high heaven.

De Armas at least has a light in her eyes and is obviously working hard to make the best of a bad situation, but Evans has such dead eyes and does such lifeless line readings the movie feels like a Weekend at Bernie’s reboot with de Armas dragging Evans’ corpse all over the world.

Evans, who made a name for himself playing Captain America in the Marvel movies, is such a buff buffoon one wonders how he got his famed physique while eating so many of his own boogers.

Hollywood has been trying forever to make Evans a movie star but the only thing that worked was the Captain America stuff because Captain America is just as bland as Evans.

Evans’s last two films are the instantaneously forgettable streaming duds Ghosted and The Gray Man, which might be the worst double-feature in the recent history of cinema. One can only hope that in short order some new meat-headed moron would take Evans’ place in Hollywood rolodex of dumb-ass hunks but you never know.

I actually felt bad for Ana de Armas watching this movie. Unlike Evans, she’s not a terrible actress…she’s not a good one either…but she deserves better than this.

It felt like the makers of this movie saw de Armas in the last James Bond movie, where she had a small but scintillating role as a sexy and silly CIA agent, and thought they’d try and replicate that energy. The problem though is that character was pretty paper thin and barely got us through ten minutes of screen time in Bond, so trying to put her on-screen for two hours in Ghosted is beyond a stretch.

Some movie stars and famous Marvel men, like Sebastian Stan and Anthony Mackie, show up in Ghosted in order to inject some life and laughs into the festivities, but not surprisingly that all falls as flat as Chris Evans’ sculpted abs.

The director of Ghosted is Dexter Fletcher, whose previous work includes the Elton John bio-pic Rocketman, which made me think that this movie should’ve starred Elton John and Debbie Harry for some random reason. At least then it would’ve been funny even if unintentionally so.

The writers of the film are Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who wrote the Deadpool movies, and Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, who wrote a bunch of Marvel stuff. Reese and Wernick’s distinctive style is easy to spot in the movie, but with Evans and de Armas spouting it and not Ryan Reynolds, it all feels forced and fails.

Apple TV+ is desperate to be a player in the streaming world, which is sort of amusing since it’s a gigantic tech company but still can’t even develop a barely usable streaming site. Despite some occasional hits like Ted Lasso and Severance, Apple has done little to distinguish itself in the crowded streaming world.

Apple seems to not understand that we aren’t in Old Hollywood or even Hollywood of the 1970s, as their approach seems to be to get stars and put them in shitty movies and people will tune in regardless of quality. As an aside, Netlfix has the same approach except they don’t even use movie stars, they just throw any piece of shit up on their service because they need content.

If Apple wants to become a Hollywood player, and to be honest I don’t really understand why they would want to be, they’re going to have to use their tech bazillions to bully buy somebody else…like Netflix or Disney or God help us HBO Max/Discovery. Because the truth is churning out third-rate garbage like Ghosted with second-rate stars like Ana de Armas and Chris Evans, isn’t gonna move the needle for a fourth-rate streaming site like Apple TV+.

The bottom line is that Ghosted is garbage and wholly deserves to not only be ghosted, but blocked before first contact. Do yourself a favor and don’t even give this pile of shit a single second of your attention.

 Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2023