No one wants to be ghosted. No one wants to be ghosted especially when the one doing the ghosting is Ana de Armas. So what do you do? Do you take the hint of 10+ unreturned text messages and forget about her and move on? Or do you – unannounced, mind you – fly 5,000 miles to London to surprise her, hoping this grand romantic gesture will be seen as such and not incredibly creepy? Honestly, if it was for Ana de Armas, I might have to take that flight. But in reality, you probably shouldn’t do that. But we’re not in reality here, we’re in a movie. So of course that’s what happens.
Chris Evans stars as Cole, who was recently dumped, partially for being too needy. He meets Sadie (Ana de Armas), and after a rocky start, the two hit off, spending the day (and night) together. There’s definitely a connection, and both seem eager to see each other again. But then Sadie doesn’t return any of Cole’s texts. He doesn’t get it, and has to decide what to do. But then inspiration strikes. He realizes he left his asthma inhaler in her purse, and tracks it to London. After some encouraging from his parents (and discouraging from his sister), Cole makes the bold move to fly off to London.
He tracks the location of the inhaler, only to be ambushed, drugged, and kidnapped. Somehow these hired goons have mistaken him for The Taxman, a renowned international espionage agent (I’ll give you one guess as to The Taxman’s real identity). Just when the torture is about to begin, Sadie comes in to save the day. It turns out she’s not an art curator as she told Cole, but rather a CIA agent. But because the bad guys still believe Cole is The Taxman, the CIA want to use him to help retrieve Aztec, a biochemical weapon Sadie was sent to secure.
Ghosted has a fun premise with two likable leads, but the end result is about as bland and forgettable as you can imagine. After I finished, I was thinking back on the movie and it felt incomplete; I was certain I was forgetting at least a couple key scenes. So I scrubbed back through the movie, and nope, I had it all. It doesn’t necessarily do anything poorly. It just doesn’t do anything particularly well.
Evans and de Armas have chemistry, but only sometimes and only kind of. The action can be good, but only sometimes and only kind of. It’s funny, but only sometimes and only kind of. I could go on, but you get the point. And it’s a shame, because it could have been better. Evans has proven himself to be good fit for this kind of movie. De Armas had maybe the highlight scene of 2021’s No Time to Die. Her Paloma character in that movie is a somewhat close comp to Sadie here, but it just didn’t come together the same way in Ghosted. The two of them even starred together in Knives Out and made a great duo. If nothing else, the pairing of the two leads should have worked.
I think it all goes back to the writing and direction. There’s nothing creative here. It didn’t have to reinvent the wheel for action comedies, but give us something. Every action scene was like thousands of others we’ve seen before. They don’t do anything the storyline of Cole’s mistaken identity and being a civilian thrust into such an extreme situation. There were a lot of opportunities with that part of the plot for Ghosted to have some fun, but it takes the safe route every time.
There’s nothing all that interesting or engaging about the characters either. Yes, Evans and de Armas are both impossibly good looking and have lots of natural charm. But that can only take a movie and its characters so far. The villains are as generic as they come, as is their overall villainous scheme.
It tries to have a little fun with some surprise cameos, but they ended up feeling more jarring than anything. They’re popular actors, so some viewers might find some fun there. But I found their inclusion adds absolutely nothing to the overall experience.
Even still, I’m probably going to be higher on this than many. I’m a sucker for action comedies, I’m a sucker for romantic comedies, I’m a sucker for spy and secret agent movies. And I’m a big fan of both Evans and de Armas. So I’ll be a little more naturally inclined to go a bit easier on it. But make no mistake, Ghosted is a competent movie at best, and you could argue that would even be a stretch. Unless the setup checks off all the boxes like it did for me, it’s best to leave Ghosted on read.
Score: 55/100
