BEFORE: From a crime film mixed with a comedy, I move on to a romantic-comedy mixed with a spy film. Is it me, or do no movies seem to be just one thing any more? So many mash-ups, I guess for years everyone in Hollywood has been hedging their bets - "Well, why just make a sci-fi film when we can also make it a musical and get more people interested in it?" Yeah, that's one theory I guess.
Katheryn Winnick carries over from "Stand Up Guys", and she'll return in February for one more film, once I get going on my romance chain. And you might well ask, why not put this film in the romance chain? Well, because I needed it to make the link here, that's why.
THE PLOT: A vacationing woman meets her ideal man, leading to a swift marriage. Back at home, their idyllic life is upset when they neighbors could be assassins who have been contracted to kill the couple.
AFTER: Well, I guess you need films like this every so often, because when you put them side-by-side, you really learn what's what. Like, how does "Killers" and "The Irishman" even exist in the same universe? They're miles apart, not even in the same ballpark, and watching this one makes me want to go back and increase my rating for the Scorsese film after the fact. OK, I admit that "The Irishman" has its faults, I certainly pointed out several of them, but this nonsense looks like a live-action cartoon by comparison! "Oh, he's a spy..." therefore he kills people, he's a martial-arts expert, deals with explosives, etc. Look, there are movie spies and there are real spies, and I bet if you knew any real spies you'd know that their daily lives are nothing like James Bond's. You know that, right, that people have been conditioned to think that all spies are sexy, fit, drive fancy cars, are all electronics experts - but don't you think James Bond stands out in a crowd, as a result of all that? The best spies in the world are probably experts at blending in and NOT being noticed - you could look right at them and never guess that they're a spy, because they look perfectly normal.
And OK, there's a bit of that here, when the assassins turn out to have been hiding out in a suburban neighborhood, and they look just like everyone else. But the whole portrayal of Ashton Kutcher as a spy is beyond ridiculous. And being on a mission in Nice, France, scuba-diving to get the secret information and then sneaking on board a big yacht to blow up a helicopter - it comes straight from James Bond culture, only it takes it further into ridiculous, and doesn't even have the decency to be a parody like "Johnny English" or that Melissa McCarthy film "Spy". We're supposed to take this one SERIOUSLY, and I just can't do it.
On top of that, there's a HUGE difference between "spy" and "contract killer", but as far as this film is concerned, they're one and the same. BUZZ - wrong, try again! OK, maybe sometimes spies have to kill someone, but those instances are few and far-between, at least I hope. The real spies are out there gathering intelligence, listening to wiretaps and on a really exciting day, maybe they get to decode a message. But I bet it's mostly sitting in a car somewhere or on top of a rooftop with a telescopic camera, figuring out who's attending that meeting in the secret location. Ya feel me?
Then, on top of all the other ridiculousness, Spencer, our lead spy character, is flirting with a woman and setting up a date for drinks, right in the middle of the mission. Seems very unprofessional to me. Shouldn't he be a little more focused on the job at hand? How does he know that this woman isn't a spy for another country, and only pretending to be a naive woman from Anytown, USA, who was recently dumped by her boyfriend yet went on this French vacation with her parents anyway? Sure, she seems sincere, but that could all be part of the act.
Ridiculousness continues as Spencer decides, within days of meeting this woman, that he's going to get out of the spy/contract killing game for good, and make an honest living somehow. And with his vast knowledge of other languages, weapons, martial arts, naturally he sets up his own home construction company. Sure, that makes perfect sense. Those code-breaking skills are going to come in mighty handy when you have to, umm, read those blueprints? I don't get it.
OK, maybe things pick up a bit when some of his employees, friends, and wife's friends turn out to be assassins, who want to take him out after he gets a message from his old intelligence contact. It's very intriguing to think that rival spies are living in suburbia and managing to pass as smalltown residents - but that excitement is fairly short-lived after the surprises are revealed.
Then there's a point at which the logic of the film just totally falls apart, and I don't want to say too much, but you'll probably know it when you see it. Only a psychotic person would send assassins to take somebody out and still somehow believe that action could be done for noble reasons. "Yes, I care about you very much, which is why I took steps to kill your husband." There's just no way that this tracks, even in a comedy. The "Batman" comic book has featured a storyline like this over the last 10 months, called "City of Bane", in which the main villain is Thomas Wayne (Bruce's father) from an alternate universe (the Flashpoint universe). In his reality, the mugger killed young Bruce Wayne, and Thomas Wayne became Batman, and Martha Wayne became the Joker. This alternate universe was supposedly destroyed, only Thomas/Batman found his way into the main DC reality, and has been fighting his alt-son ever since. So far he's taken over Gotham City, destroyed his son's impending marriage to Catwoman and (seemingly) killed Alfred, all to convince his (not-really) son to give up fighting crime and enjoy life. Right. He killed Batman's closest confidant and ruined his shot at married life, because he CARES about him, and wants him to be happy. It just doesn't work that way, even if you factor in the fact that Thomas/Batman might be psychotic. Scrap these plans at the concept stage, and try again. But no, it's been a YEAR of this storyline that will probably end up going nowhere and revert to the status quo - though how they're going to bring Alfred back, I have no idea.
Also starring Ashton Kutcher (last seen in "Cheaper by the Dozen"), Katherine Heigl (last heard in "The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature"), Tom Selleck (last seen in "Midway"), Catherine O'Hara (last seen in "Orange County"), Casey Wilson (last seen in "The Meddler"), Rob Riggle (last seen in "Night School"), Lisa Ann Walter, Martin Mull (last seen "A Futile and Stupid Gesture"), Kevin Sussman (last seen in "Hitch"), Alex Borstein (last heard in "The Angry Birds Movie"), LeToya Luckett, Mary Birdsong (last seen in "Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters"), Usher Raymond (last seen in "Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping").
RATING: 4 out of 10 home pregnancy tests
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