THE SPY NEXT DOOR

Review: Chan at worst in “Spy Next Door”

1/2* out of four stars

When I say Jackie Chan gives an awful performance in “The Spy Next Door,” I’m not comparing him to, say, George Clooney, who is now up for a Golden Globe for his work in “Up in the Air.” I’m comparing his performance to whatever performance was his best, and then deciding from there. So on a scale from one to ten, one being the worst possible performance ever and ten being a solid performance from Jackie Chan, this one still gets about a negative five.

I say this because Jackie Chan recently bashed his action classic “Rush Hour,” saying it was the worst thing he ever did. This makes me think about “The Tuxedo,” “The Medallion,” “Around the World in 80 Days,” and especially “Burn Hollywood Burn.” If those were better than “Rush Hour,” where does “The Spy Next Door” fit in?

 ”The Spy Next Door” is a formula. A spy/hitman/football player/mass murderer is now in middle-America suburbia and is stuck watching the brattiest kids from hell, when all of a sudden the bad guys find him and action ensues.

Let’s see, Schwarzeneggar in “Kindergarten Cop.” Hulk Hogan in “The Nanny.” Vin Diesel in “The Pacifier.” Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in “The Game Plan” and so on. The last two of those films were done within the past five years, so the formula is a little too fresh in people’s minds.

Jackie Chan plays a spy who is thrust into that situation. The bad guys are the Russians. Their plan is so incredibly stupid as are they. When you look back on the movie, the Russian bad guys pose zero threat at all to Chan, the kids, or their mother.

The children. Oh how the children are horrible. And not “cute horrible.” These children are little creeps who could really benefit from a little Ritalin. Not once do they do anything for anyone but themselves. Not even in the end do they learn a good life lesson or do a good deed for someone. They are nasty, destructive little kids. Had I gone to school with them, I would have avoided them like the plague.

So what we have left are the action and the stunts. Action and stunts are something crucial to a Jackie Chan film. In fact, they’re arguably the only reason to go. This film is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association of America, meaning the actual action and stunt department is very limited. Let me list five Jackie Chan films that are perfectly appropriate for this film’s target audience that have much better stunts and fight scenes: “Mr. Nice Guy,” “First Strike,” “Who Am I,” “Twin Dragons,” “The Forbidden Kingdom.” Coincidentally, these films are all better in every way to “The Spy Next Door.”

Finally, you know you’re in trouble when your Jackie Chan film has bloopers at the end and not one of them involves Jackie getting hurt.

The Spy Next Door

Uhhh.. I feel kinda stupid. See I had a reunion with the uni mates, haven't seen them in weeks. We decided to see a movie. We missed Legion so we had no choice but to go for The Spy Next Door. And I was like okay lets be fair to the movie, cause mostly anyone who goes to watch this already has a preconceived idea that this movie is going to suck. So I thought I'd give it the benefit of the doubt. Guess what? It still sucked.



The movie is about Bob Ho, who is this top spy on loan to the CIA from the Chinese Govt. on a mission to capture this Russian bad guy. In the suburban life, he acts as a pen salesmen who's dating his next door neighbor, a hot blonde chick who has 3 children from hell played by Amber Valletta. So when Amber Valletta gets called away, Bob volunteers to babysit the 3 demon kids as his Russian nemesis tracks him down for revenge.



Tedious set up, completely unoriginal, we've seen this a thousand times with other fallen action heros like Vin Diesel, Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Rock bla bla bla. The movie makes no attempt to cover giant plot holes. I almost felt embarrassed sitting in that cinema thinking to myself "How the hell did I wind up paying to watch this horrible movie."  And I really felt urges to slap the people behind me who were constantly laughing at the lamest jokes in the movie.


Spy Next Door's only saving grace was Jackie Chan. Which could make watching this turd of a film tolerable you if you like him. So yeah like Su YSW says. "Only watch it if you are a fan of Jackie" However I still want to punch him out cause that accent is really irritating. you know.. the I'm a Chinese trying very hard to speak good English accent.



On a positive side.. I think this is the first American film Jackie has done in a long time that actually has some good fight scenes in them. And when I say good, I mean really good. I missed the old Jackie Chan fight movies that were both intense and creatively funny at the same time and yeah Spy Next Door delivered in that. There were some points in the fight scenes that I found myself actually applauding.



Another thing I will give this movie credit is that it never stooped down to the lowest rung of children comedy. There weren't any fart jokes, poop jokes, pee jokes, baby vomit jokes or pet jokes. There were occasional out of place slapstick but were inoffensive and mostly happens during the fight scenes. But it's still not that funny.


And damn the villain lady is hot. Her names Katherine Broecher. She was like in the tightest leather outfit with a push up bra and I was like Ooooooohh... I don't think she should have been in this film. Hello? This is a kids movie! You're too damn hot. Later some 10 year old boy will discover that his thing does more than pee hahaha.



And like in any kids movie, I really hated the kid actors in this. They were incredibly annoying and they weren't even acting annoying. They were just legitimately truly annoying. Why can't people get good child actors anymore?


Those good fight scenes aside, there's really not much reason why anyone should pay to see this movie.  Still can't believe you paid RM120 to watch this Su hahahaha.

RATING: 2/10

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NicholasC

Jackie Chan Made Himself Silly, So It's A Bad Movie

This is outrageous and disappointing. Luckily, I have never put in any expectation when the Hollywood decided to put Jackie Chan in yet another movie that has gone out of his comfort zone. Jackie Chan has some impressive moment with Shinjuku Incident last year but now putting him into something else did no good at all. Here is why!

Mr Bob Ho (Jackie Chan) is a loan Chinese agent for the secret service CIA, decided to retire into a normal life to wed his girlfriend next door, Gillian (Amber Valletta) and to be a good father for her three children. While have to juggle the need to win over the heart of her three children, Bob will also need to face his archenemy, a Russian terrorist when one of the kids mistakenly downloads the terrorist's top-secret formula from his computer.

May I reinstate again, this kind of plot is no longer fresh. Borrowed and recycled exclusively from Vin Diesel's The Pacifier, the movie deals about an action star doubling his life as an agent or important figure to take care kids while juggling another problem on his other hand. Of course, the only twist in the movie like the others, a man that turned away his country. Basically there is no different than watching Vin Diesel's The Pacifier, or The Rock's Game Plan or even Ice Cube's Are We There Yet. The differences here are that Chan is an Asian and the movie never failed to impress us with his comedic-role and the stunts.

Recycled could be one hell of the problem that makes this movie not a brilliant stand-alone at all. Another problem is the movie lacks a proper script and followable plot. Script is not so funny and basically contains too much slapstick humour that does not serve much great deal after all. The plot is like a parody of Arnold Schwarzengger's True Lies, only to have a sloppy and sluggish dialog. Again, Jackie Chan seems to be struggling with the English but we love to watch him because of that, aren't we?

For the roles of acting, I think the only character that I felt amazing was the four-year-old Nora (played by Alina Foley). Nora is cute, peachy and witty. She is also the best character that can match up Bob Ho in the movie, partly due to her innocences and much affinity to Bob. The two other kids can be annoying at time but enjoyable, just like in The Pacifier. Jackie Chan is yet again predictable, portraying his bad English, typical action stunts and been comedic. Magnus Scheving's role as the Russian villain almost made me forgot that he is in fact an Icelandic. Magnus can really matched up with Jackie in terms of action and acrobatic skills. Read here and you will know why he is so good.

The Spy Next Door is just another form of dimension of The Pacifier. It is just been dumber and too slapstick compared to the latter and I find it hard to enjoy. Perhaps the comedy made my day a little or else, it is just another movie that is passable. Or if you are Jackie's fan, go ahead!! 

From,
Bernard,
http://greenteamovie.blogspot.com

Recommendations: Inception

Have yourself a cup of green tea

Last updated: 2010-02-23 00:35:53 by FadingMemory