ugh...look, i don't want to start by whining and complaining about letterboxd reviewers again, buuut... 2.8 overall rating here?? eternals has a 3.1 and justice league is sitting on a 3.5! wtf, letterboxd? are you not en-ter-tained!? moving on... the gray man is, succinctly, the formula. this is it. many studios have been trying to figure out how to do james bond for the new era, and mostly they wind up with blatant copies and watered-down permutations. some, like the first bourne movie, start differently enough to be promising. others, like atomic blonde, went woefully unappreciated. but nobody has quite nailed how to do the action, comedy, charm, and style that the old james bond movies did without feeling like they're just ripping off (or trying and failing to) those old films. even many of the new james bond films. but here, ryan gosling does it. dispensing with the baggage of that character, the russo brothers have made a new super-deadly secret agent rebel, just as cool as bond but in a very different way. gosling is charming and handsome and can pull off the action better than any other bond, including craig. but he never feels like he's just doing bond without the name. billy bob thornton never feels like a pale shadow of m, though he is in that relative role as the elder contact, the parental figure of sorts. ana da armas could easily be a bond girl but isn't here to look pretty and be seduced, or to dupe the spy and betray him, or to be rescue bait. she's her own character with her own agenda, something most bond films never managed. opposite her is jessica henwick, who if i have my druthers will one day bring her iron fist into the mcu. but here, henwick sort of is, and isn't, the felix leiter of the film. a cia agent who is sympathetic to our hero, but also wants to serve the us, but is also realistic about bending the rules for the greater good. she puts her own spin on the position and is an interesting wild card that suffers through some scenes in the film to ultimately have a rewarding arc. as far as bond villains, this would be one of those films that has the immediate threat and the mastermind, the guy in the chair so to speak. up-and-comer regé-jean page plays the chair guy, and he didn't do much for me but he was an interesting choice i suppose. the more obvious villain is chris evans as lloyd, who is really at maximum lloyd-ness. oh man, does he lloyd it up in this bitch. as gosling's character says, "the white pants. the trash 'stache. it's just... it leans: lloyd." evans makes strong choices in this, really just going for ultimate doucheness without ever seeming to be unthreatening or incompetent. it's a tightrope, and i think viewers are either gonna love to hate him, or just hate him. with all the fantastic players in this, i'd be remiss if i didn't mention the biggest players: the russos themselves. with their mcu writers markus and mcfeely, they bring in a simple yet fast-moving script full of character moments and clever patter. there isn't quite a 1960's level of careful curation put into the aesthetic and production design of every scene here, but it's close. from the cities chosen to the sets used, the costuming to the weapons, there are as many interesting and unique choices here as in any bond film. plenty that hasn't been seen, that's stimulating to the eyes, but not as obviously showy as a closeup on a tom ford suit or an omega watch or whatever obscene product placement deal littered the last bond film. the big differentiator here will be that the gray man isn't edging 50, like most bonds. meaning he doesn't need to rely on shooting and driving, the action scenes can actually involve fighting and running...and i don't mean fake karate chops and badly-wigged stunt doubles. both ryan and evans obviously do a lot of their own work here, and the russos are smart enough to let it be seen. no bourne shaky cams and no massively-pulled back landscape shots like in many bond films. you're close enough to see the real stunts and skill here, and there are plenty of fights to be had. i dare say the action here is on par with the winter soldier, which is stunning since the russos are now getting the next generation down of the 87eleven stunt team. chad stahelski, david leitch, and sam hargrave have all moved on to bigger projects. but the young bucks here, daniel hernandez and don thai theerathada, really kill it. the intensity and visceral nature of the fights is clear...it's just a shame people are watching these on small screens at home. they're also some of the most interestingly-lit fights i may ever have seen. every fight has its own different lighting, from the fireworks in the start to the sunrise at the end, there's a whole arc and a theme to these. i'm mixed on the cinematography as a whole here...the russos use stephen f. windon from the fast & furious films...but you can't say this thing doesn't have gloss. i think at times there's just a bit too much happening on screen to capture clearly, especially during the scenes where so much is digital. honestly, it feels like the russos think they're making an avengers film again, but they're on a netflix budget. still, there's a lot to love here, and a lot of nice plays on the genre and twists, both to character and plot. i would've given this 4 stars, really, except that the narrative really pushes hard to build up to this ending fight, and it is so badly cut. the editing in this film sometimes works well, but often it's overly messy. pietro scalia has won oscars with oliver stone and ridley scott, but here he co-edits with jeff groth and the result leans towards groth's skill level. the ending fight in particular is from the taken 3 school of editing, with as many as 5 cuts per second, obscuring the fight movements and making it actually confusing to follow. the players are both incredibly practiced and skilled, so either there was a horrible accident and the footage had to be thrown away, or murder was done to this sequence in the editing room. either way, it's an underwhelming finale. all told, the gray man is the new 007 we need, the one we deserve, and without the lame efforts at relevance the owners of that ip are trying. this film even makes a cheeky joke about gosling being called six because "007 was taken". well, the spot is vacant now. and i for one will be back to see more of six. after all, the old man is still out there...