The Double

---

Should you go watch it?

No. Another good idea gone Hollywood.

---

Spoiler free review.

Hollywood has just been about money for a long time. When something gives them money they copy it over and over. One good example is "The Double" (and thousands of other movies like this). Since the James Bond films were blockbusters they just copy the formula. Even with the bad things. Even if they insert a new idea.

This movie has a very interesting idea for a story but it has 3 really major issues:

1) They want to make the Russians the bad guys again. Why don't just place it in cold war times?
2) The very common even-expert-assassins-cannot-hit-the-good-guy-2-meters-away-with-a-shotgun problem (James Bond inheritance like the bad-guy-never-kills-the-good-guy-when-he's-caught-him-and-then-tells-him-the-plan-giving-him-time-to-escape problem). I'm tired of this happening in every spy or action movie.
3) The also common problem of forcing a twist even if it doesn't make sense with everything else that happened. This is too big of a problem to ignore.

It also has 2 other problems:

1) The trailer spoils an early twist... why the hell did they do that?! It's revealed early in the movie but it's still a twist in the plot that may have surprised me had I not seen the trailer. If you want to see this movie, avoid the trailer.
2) Topher Grace. He's not Venom. He's not a spy. He's that's 70s show kid... give him something funny or at most romantic to do!

Richard Gere is ok as a spy actually.


So the film is entertaining (and even good?) if you ignore all of the above but I cannot do that anymore...