GHOSTED

GHOSTED is a spy comedy streaming on Apple TV+.

When an underwhelming guy, Cole, whose interests include history and farming, meets a girl, Sadie, that he thinks might be “the one,” their new relationship quickly goes beyond first base. After it appears that she ghosts him on social media, he follows her to London, thinking he’s making a nice romantic gesture.

Arriving in the UK’s most famous city, he finds himself captured by Russian terrorists who refer to him as “The Taxman” and interrogate him about a weapon known only as Aztec. Saved at the last minute when Sadie herself shows up, Cole is floored to find that his ghosting girlfriend is actually an international spy, and her carefully cultivated underworld persona is “The Taxman.” Caught up in her mission to save the world from a misuse of Aztec and unprepared for what lies ahead, Cole gets more than he ever wanted in this match made in international espionage.

GHOSTED is certainly action packed. Some of the action sequences, whether played for laughs or for real, choreographed, slo-mo, or otherwise, are quite effective. However, this strength at some points becomes a weakness because the action is often so unrelenting and over the top that it becomes laughable, with a petite female operative almost single-handedly taking down hordes of male assailants. One outlandish scene after another becomes a rather mindless action fest.

Also, the parts of the film that are intended to make one laugh are only partially effective, examples being the bounty hunter killing bounty hunter sequence which is far too drawn out to elicit consistent laughs. The movie is really trying too hard to be funny. Acting is so-so with Captain America being forced to play Captain Needy and an elite spy often emotionally out of control in the middle of an op. It often seems that these talented actors, miscast and misdirected as they are, are painfully aware that they are “acting.” For all these reasons, the movie is only slightly satisfying.

Dominant worldview is a rather slovenly Romanticism with some biblical moral elements. Sadie tries to get over deep loss with a one night stand while Cole acts like a reluctant Romantic poet in sensual suggestion which he eventually relents and does. He does eventually manage to teach Sadie that her “mission over man” paradigm is in need of a shift and helps her to grasp the importance of human relations and the value of a single life. However, this championing of the value of the individual seems to be understood from the standpoint of Romanticism rather than a biblical worldview. The romantic leads to look out for each other in a self-sacrificial way and manage to save the world from Aztec, but this would seem to be the only truly biblical theme in the movie. GHOSTED contains some sexuality, strong foul language and intense action violence. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution.