Back in Action

Year 18, Day 154 - 6/3/26 - Movie #5,336 - FATHER'S DAY FILM #2

BEFORE: Looking back on last year, there were TEN films that I counted as Father's Day films. Maybe I was being a bit too inclusive, because I don't really need TEN, I could be fine with three or four, I don't need to overload on any one topic, but then again, once I start looking for films with fathers in them, you can bet I'm going to find a bunch of them. So let's start the count with June 1 and I'll go from there - that would make this the second one. Heck, with a married couple with kids, putting this one between Mother's Day and Father's Day should be a no-brainer, right? Yes, I know I've got to watch "Spy Kids" one of these years, those films are on the list. 

Poppy Townsend White carries over from "Cleaner". 

THE PLOT: Former CIA spies Emily and Matt are pulled back into espionage after their secret identities are exposed. 

AFTER: I want to give a shout-out today to stuntmen, and stuntwomen - these action films have casts that are filled with stunt performers and I decided a while back to NOT keep track of most stuntpersons, for the main reason that it would be a lot of "extra" work. Some of these action films could employ dozens of people, and I only want to keep track of actors who have lines or play named characters. That makes most of the stunt community ineligible for my year-end wrap-up lists - a stunt person could be in a dozen films that I watched within a year, and even if I'm aware of that, I'm going to ignore their efforts - I apologize across the board, however my ruling is not likely to change. I will make exceptions for any time a stunt performer plays their own character, and that character has a name and is not just listed as "thug #2". My other justification for this is that I only want to deal with actors who are SEEN on camera, and most of the time stunt people are trying hard to NOT be seen, or they're pretending to be someone else who is more famous and isn't insured to do stunt-work. In today's film a number of stunt people are credited as named characters, so good for them - however since most of their other appearances are done anonymously, it probably won't help any of them make the year-end countdown anwyay. 

The opening 15 minutes of this film is filled with action and stunts, the part set in the past when Matt and Emily, two CIA operatives, start working together and also start a relationship at the same time. Emily has learned that she is pregnant, however they have been tasked with stealing a device from Balthazzar Gor, a Polish agent-turned terrorist, and they do so by crashing his child's birthday party, and stealing his voice ID and fingerprint when Emily shakes his hand. This grants them access to the safe where the device is stored, and it's a device that can control ANY electronic system, the ultimate hacking tool. Unfortunately this is probably like the 7th or 8th movie that I've seen that features such a device. 

The agents escape via car chase and make it to their rendezvous point, then board a plane for the U.S. Unfortunately the flight crew has been compromised with agents who are on Gor's payroll, and this leads to a mid-air attempt on their lives, a mid-air battle with those enemy agents, and the unfortunate mid-air death of the pilot due to a rogue bullet. So the plane crashes in the European mountains, and the fuselage proceeds to slide down a mountain without its wings. After killing the last few agents, Matt and Emily find ONE parachute, but manage to share it while they exit the plane JUST as it reaches a cliff and explodes below them.  

Considering her pregnancy, they decide to use the plane crash to pretend to be dead and go off the grid, simultaneously going "all-in" on the relationship and ready to face a life of being (relatively) normal parents. What could POSSIBLY go wrong? Fast-forward to 15 years later, the ex-agents are married and live in Atlanta with two teenage children, Alice and Leo. They're starting to have problems with teenage rebellion, especially with Alice, who they learn (via hacking her computer) has a fake ID and is going clubbing with her friends. She's also interested in boys, which they learned from spying on her outside of school - once a spy, always a spy, I guess. 

Using phone-tracking tech, the two parents find their daughter in a nightclub, and demand that she come home. This leads to some young men who don't want Alice to leave causing some trouble, and the agents resort to their old habits, easily beating these men in a bar brawl with their CIA martial arts expertise. Despite trying to clear the phones of some of their attackers, footage of the bar brawl does get posted, so they get a visit from their old handler, Chuck, who warns them that if he could find them, so could Gor, and then Chuck is promptly shot and (seemingly) killed, right on their doorstep. 

Cue another car chase, as the parents race to their kids' school to pull them out of class (umm, NITPICK POINT, pretty sure you can't do that without proving you're their parents) and they all fly to England, telling the kids that it's time to meet their grandmother for the first time. Emily's mother, of course, is a noted MI-6 agent and sniper, and Matt took the opportunity at some point to hide the ICS "hacking" key in her stately manor home. MI-6 agents, including Emily's ex-boyfriend, track them pretty much as soon as they land at Heathrow. Before long the parents have to reveal their pasts to their own children, in order to explain why they now have new names on their fake passports. 

While the kids awkwardly meet their estranged grandmother for the first time, Matt and Emily find the key hidden in her house, only to then have Polish mercenaries attack, and the non-dead Chuck, who is working for the enemy, gains possession of the Key. He plans to auction off the key to the highest bidder at a black-tie event at a museum, while holding Alice and Leo hostage. As a demonstration of the key's power, he causes a blackout across London and opens the floodgates of the Thames Barrier, which could somehow cause all of London to be, well, flooded. 

All of this leads to a very complicated motorcycle and boat chase through London, which sure reminds me of the one I saw in "The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard". Just saying. But the whole family team gets involved, while the parents rescue their kids from their evil ex-handler, Emily's mother Ginny does sniper work while Ginny's boyfriend crashes into a van to get control of the key, and ineptly struggles to get those floodgates back up, which would conveniently save London from a flood and also create something for Chuck's boat to crash into, preventing his escape. 

Everyone gets back to Atlanta in time for Alice's soccer game (Whew, that was close) and before the kids could miss too much school. Hey, I guess the family that CIA's together stays together... There will most likely be a sequel film, because at the very end Emily's ex-boyfriend Baron shows up in the U.S. because he wants to recruit Emily's father, who we have not met yet, for a mission. Hmm, will he be played by Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth or Sean Bean? I guess we'll have to wait to find out. 

NITPICK POINT #2: It's unlikely that any computer programmer would have had the ability 15 years ago to design any kind of "universal hacking" device, and then for it to be missing 15 years and then work just as well, that's even more unlikely. It's more reasonable to assume that most systems have been upgraded or re-designed over a 15-year time span, and then the Key would probably not work on them. Right? I mean, it probably doesn't even have a USB connector on it. 

Directed by Seth Gordon (director of "Baywatch" and "Identity Thief")

Also starring Jamie Foxx (last seen in "Martha"), Cameron Diaz (last seen in "Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond"), McKenna Roberts (last seen in "Barbie"), Rylan Jackson (last seen in "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves"), Kyle Chandler (last seen in "Slumberland"), Glenn Close (last seen in "Wake Up Dead Man"), Andrew Scott (ditto), Jamie Demetriou (last seen in "Jay Kelly"), Fola Evans-Akingbola, Robert Besta, Bashir Salahuddin (last seen in "Family Switch"), Tom Brittney (last seen in "Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool"), Ben VanderMey (last seen in "The Six Triple Eight"), Jude Mack (last seen in "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning"), Ivan Ivashkin (ditto), Lee Charles (ditto), Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo, Tobi Bamtefa (last seen in "How to Build a Girl"), Leela Owen, Cruz Hadley, Zion James, Katrina Durden (last seen in "Heads of State"), Erol Ismail (last seen in "Lift"), Jess Liaudin (ditto), George Surry (last seen in "Kraven the Hunter"), Victoria Howell, Erol Mehmet, Gregory Konow (last seen in "Spider-Man: No Way Home"), Anthea Greco (last heard in "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio"), Sonny Louis, Matthew Stirling, Andrius Davidenas, Tom Crowley, Elizabeth Hill, David Shaw Parker (last seen in "The Man Who Knew Infinity"), Lucy Sheen (last seen in "Secrets & Lies"), George Wigzell, Steve Wiebe (last seen in "Pixels"), Chereena Miller, Brent Parris, Alfredo Tavares (last seen in "Wicked")

RATING: 6 out of 10 components of a full English breakfast