In “Back in Action,” a generic domestic spy thriller like its title, Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz, as two CIA agents who become a romantic couple, attend a birthday party for children thrown by a Belarusian cyber-terrorist whose safekeeping they keep. Re-planning the storm. But their identities are revealed in about five minutes. They must fight their way out of the criminal’s mansion, which they do in a long series of bone-crushing confrontations, all accompanied by Frank Sinatra singing “Love” (“Love”).to…it is for the way that suits you He looks…in my face…”). The song, as used here, highlights the ironic delight in shoveling. It’s the movie’s way of saying: There’s nothing at stake, don’t take it too seriously, turn off your brain and soak in the warm bath of this Netflix product of the week (because that’s all it’s here for).
“Back in Action” director Seth Gordon thinks in terms of animation and reality. He believes this is his job, and that setting violent action sequences to old standards is just the only “back in action” playbook he has. Our heroes are on board an MI6 plane when they are ambushed by flight attendants, who proceed to destroy them while Sinatra sings “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head” (haha). The pilot is shot, the plane goes down, but there is Frank, jumping away. Later, Fox and Diaz use gas station hoses as flamethrowers to burn some of the thug attackers; Images of people burning alive are accompanied by Etta James singing “Finally” (“Finally, my friend”). love He has come…” They win the battle, but make no mistake: this is the entertaining strategy of a misanthropic hacker.
After the plane crash, Matt (Fox) and Emily (Diaz), who is pregnant, seize the opportunity to fake their deaths and start a normal life. The film then jumps to the present day, where they are suburban parents with two children, 14-year-old Alice (Mckenna Roberts) and 12-year-old Leo (Rylan Jackson). But they are drawn back into battle after they track Alice to a nightclub, where she is in the company of some older men. They get her out of the club by beating up two of the other parties – a blatantly implausible scenario, though necessary for a cell phone video to go viral and expose them as former spies.
With their children now along for the ride, the family travels to London, where Matt has stored the ICS Key, the very faded MacGuffin in the movie. If they recovered it and brought it back to the CIA, they could use it as leverage to get immunity. But the key is something everyone wants, including their old terrorist enemies…
Watching “Back in Action,” it’s as if some producer took the original 2005 version of “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” the one that wasted Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, and said, “Get me something exactly like this — except not Makes it that intellectual! I want it dumber and louder, without all the lame dialogue There’s not much of a spy plot in “Back in Action” Basically, the movie consists of Foxx and Diaz beating up people Clichely, between them they act as breezy, ignorant, and harmless as if they were playing parents in a reboot of Family Ties.
Both actors are attractive. They have the marriage chemistry of a local fight club. When Glenn Close appears as Emily’s British mother, a former super-spy, the film calms down a bit and becomes more active. Close’s Jenny has an assistant, Nigel (Jamie Demetriou), a spy-in-training who is also her lover, though he is at least 40 years her junior. It turns out that Nigel doesn’t know what to do. This results in a funny scene, in which he has to save London by clicking on the right things on his laptop, and reacts exactly as most of us do when faced with the infuriating digital logistical hoop to jump through- a week. But the real reason Nigel’s uncertainty is such a balm is because everyone else in “Back in Action” (the heroes, the villains, the kids) is so confident at every moment that the film leaves no room for any suspenseful comedic component beyond one tedious one-dimensionality. Badass certainty.