Ghosted – Film Review

Salt-of-the-earth Cole falls head over heels for enigmatic Sadie — but then makes the shocking discovery that she’s a secret agent. Before they can decide on a second date, Cole and Sadie are swept away on an international adventure to save the world.

Even though it’s certainly far from awful, Dexter Fletcher‘s Ghosted is one of the most genuinely bizarre and mind-boggling movies I’ve seen in an exceptionally long time. By all accounts, this should’ve been a decently fun and enjoyable romantic-comedy action flick, but instead, so much of this potential magic is lost along the way.

To be honest with you, I was actually really enjoying the film during its first twenty minutes or so. A lot. Sure, it was a bit cheesy and campy but that was the point. The opening few scenes show Chris Evans‘ character Cole Turner swooning over Ana de Armas‘ suave and charming Sadie Rhodes, who makes a fool of himself because of his bumbling personality.

But after agreeing to go on a date with him, the two actually find out that they get along quite well and they quickly fall head-over-heels for one another. And then, just a few scenes later, the film’s tone shifts jarringly to that of a full-on spy film with no warning sign given.

I understand that this film is supposed to be an action comedy, but there should’ve been a much smoother transition to those elements. This script was penned by four different people and, sadly, it shows. There are so many different ideas present in this story and a lot of them just don’t work all that well.

The movie is at its best when it focuses on the dynamic between Chris Evans and Ana de Armas’ characters, but unfortunately, there are too many sequences with them later on that feel far too repetitive and there are also a high number of scenes where they aren’t the main focus.

What I will say, though, is that Evans and de Armas are absolutely fantastic in their roles and it’s evident that they had a total blast filming this movie. The two have excellent chemistry together which makes a lot of sense seeing as how they’ve worked together before in films such as The Gray Man and the wonderful Knives Out.

Interestingly though, Scarlett Johansson was initially supposed to portray the character of Sadie Rhodes, which definitely makes me curious. Would this movie have been a little bit better with her in the role as opposed to de Armas? She was great in the movie for sure, but it is worth noting that Johansson and Evans are best friends in real life, so perhaps their chemistry would’ve been even greater.

Regardless, there isn’t a whole lot of things to enjoy about this movie when you really boil it down. It feels like a ton of other movies in the genre that are much better than this one. It’s also one of those movies where, if successful, I can almost guarantee will get a sequel because this film truly has “franchise” written all over it. If so, let’s just hope that the follow-up has a much tighter focus.

While Chris Evans and Ana de Armas definitely shine, Ghosted is still a tremendously dull and overly predictable romantic comedy action-adventure outing.