The song is written in the key of B♭ major with an initial tempo of 70 beats per minute, later transitioning to 108 BPM.
Julianne Escobedo Shepherd of Pitchfork commented "Bad Bunny sounds like he dialed in his verse from the Sprinter en route to the Gucci show while Drake deploys his best seventh-grade Spanish on a dembow beat—('My broski Benito, he needs a bonita,' et cetera)—and yet it's still a high point far away from Drake's darkness.
"[6] NME's Luke Morgan Britton wrote "Even the Latin-infused 'Gently', basically Drake-doing-Dembow, feels like a cynical marketing ploy that not even Bad Bunny's effortless cool can save.
"[7] Louis Pavlakos of HipHopDX commented the song "is Drake's second attempt at making reggaeton but he sounds lost singing in Spanish alongside Bad Bunny.
[9] Shahzaib Hussain of Clash responded positively to the song, writing "the Spanglish reggaeton heat of 'Gently' is also Drake at his sinuous, shapeshifting best.