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revdorothyl at 10:08am on 24/06/2005 under movie reviews
revdorothyl at 10:08am on 24/06/2005 under movie reviewsI had a church meeting which ended earlier than expected yesterday afternoon, allowing me to stop off at a multiplex on my way home and catch a matinee of "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", which had been on my list of things I might like to see, but was nowhere near the top of my list.
I have to say, I wasn't all that impressed for the first 45 minutes or so, when I thought it was all style and not much substance or heart, but then it went in a direction I hadn't quite expected from the previews, and became REALLY clever and enjoyable.
We've all seen the previews and the presumed set-up of the movie: Two assassins are unknowingly married, each thinking the other is just a "civilian," and after 5 or 6 years of marriage, the fire has long vanished from their marriage, leaving mutual politeness and tight-lipped annoyance as their only channel of communication. But then, they each discover the other's "secret" identity and somehow end up assigned to kill one another.
A rather brittle premise, made watchable only by the presence of two very pretty actors who manage to bring every ounce of dark humor to the fore. I'll admit that the switch from bare tolerance to trying to blow each other away was handled much more believably and empathically than I had anticipated. But it's hardly an original or ground-breaking concept.
The title of the film is identical with a short-lived Scott Bakula series from the later 1990's (in which Bakula and a blond actress, whose name and face I don't at the moment recall, played cutely sniping and deeply competitive secret agents who were assigned to pose as husband and wife to allow them to better infiltrate suburbia and carry out homeland security-type espionage/surveillance). The initial set-up is HIGHLY reminiscent of the first half of "True Lies" (with Jamie Lee Curtis bemoaning the tedium of her husband's work, not knowing that Arnold Schwarzenegger is secretly wreaking havoc and saving the world on a daily basis, and Schwarzenegger having no idea that Curtis has the courage, resourcefulness, and desire to save the world, also). I was even reminded of a disappointing made-for-TV movie I saw in the late 1970's called "Hit Lady". And once they start trying to annihilate each other in their own home, the resemblance to the latter half of "The War Between the Roses" becomes unavoidable.
But THEN comes the twist that made this film seem like more than just a pleasant but utterly forgettable bit of high-concept marshmallow fluff: once the Smiths finally and violently blow away the cobweb of lies and the false fronts and props of their first six years of marriage, they actually begin to connect with one another and build a new, honest relationship amid the charred debris of the old, condescendingly dishonest one. Then, the double entendres and husband-wife rivalry and affectionate exasperation and squabbling REALLY get funny and clever.
The denouement was a trifle abrupt for my taste. I would have liked to see more of a Dennis-Quaid-and-Kathleen-Turner-in-"Undercover-Blues" partnership/working relationship develop, rather than non-stop hails of bullets followed by two-year-jump into the future, with no actual information about how they turned things around and managed to keep both their marriage and each other alive in the interim. But that's just me. The ending was amusing and in keeping with the over-all structure and style of the film.
It's just my loss that I wanted some verbal affirmation of their new partnership, on the order of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in "Pat and Mike" (as I recall, it went something like "I don't know if I can lick you, or you can lick me, but I do know that together we can lick the world") or the words of the Klingon marriage rite from the "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" episode "You Are Cordially Invited" (where the two Klingon hearts team up and destroy the gods that created them).
All in all, I'd say that "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" was well worth the six dollars I paid for that matinee and an enjoyable (if far from life-changing) way to spend two hours.
I have to say, I wasn't all that impressed for the first 45 minutes or so, when I thought it was all style and not much substance or heart, but then it went in a direction I hadn't quite expected from the previews, and became REALLY clever and enjoyable.
We've all seen the previews and the presumed set-up of the movie: Two assassins are unknowingly married, each thinking the other is just a "civilian," and after 5 or 6 years of marriage, the fire has long vanished from their marriage, leaving mutual politeness and tight-lipped annoyance as their only channel of communication. But then, they each discover the other's "secret" identity and somehow end up assigned to kill one another.
A rather brittle premise, made watchable only by the presence of two very pretty actors who manage to bring every ounce of dark humor to the fore. I'll admit that the switch from bare tolerance to trying to blow each other away was handled much more believably and empathically than I had anticipated. But it's hardly an original or ground-breaking concept.
The title of the film is identical with a short-lived Scott Bakula series from the later 1990's (in which Bakula and a blond actress, whose name and face I don't at the moment recall, played cutely sniping and deeply competitive secret agents who were assigned to pose as husband and wife to allow them to better infiltrate suburbia and carry out homeland security-type espionage/surveillance). The initial set-up is HIGHLY reminiscent of the first half of "True Lies" (with Jamie Lee Curtis bemoaning the tedium of her husband's work, not knowing that Arnold Schwarzenegger is secretly wreaking havoc and saving the world on a daily basis, and Schwarzenegger having no idea that Curtis has the courage, resourcefulness, and desire to save the world, also). I was even reminded of a disappointing made-for-TV movie I saw in the late 1970's called "Hit Lady". And once they start trying to annihilate each other in their own home, the resemblance to the latter half of "The War Between the Roses" becomes unavoidable.
But THEN comes the twist that made this film seem like more than just a pleasant but utterly forgettable bit of high-concept marshmallow fluff: once the Smiths finally and violently blow away the cobweb of lies and the false fronts and props of their first six years of marriage, they actually begin to connect with one another and build a new, honest relationship amid the charred debris of the old, condescendingly dishonest one. Then, the double entendres and husband-wife rivalry and affectionate exasperation and squabbling REALLY get funny and clever.
The denouement was a trifle abrupt for my taste. I would have liked to see more of a Dennis-Quaid-and-Kathleen-Turner-in-"Undercover-Blues" partnership/working relationship develop, rather than non-stop hails of bullets followed by two-year-jump into the future, with no actual information about how they turned things around and managed to keep both their marriage and each other alive in the interim. But that's just me. The ending was amusing and in keeping with the over-all structure and style of the film.
It's just my loss that I wanted some verbal affirmation of their new partnership, on the order of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in "Pat and Mike" (as I recall, it went something like "I don't know if I can lick you, or you can lick me, but I do know that together we can lick the world") or the words of the Klingon marriage rite from the "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" episode "You Are Cordially Invited" (where the two Klingon hearts team up and destroy the gods that created them).
All in all, I'd say that "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" was well worth the six dollars I paid for that matinee and an enjoyable (if far from life-changing) way to spend two hours.
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