Image courtesy of www.impawards.com
Director :
Doug Liman
Cast :
Brad Pitt……….John Smith
Angelina Jolie……….Jane Smith
Vince Vaughn……….Eddie
Kerry Washington……….Jasmine
The remake of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, previously an Alfred Hitchcock comedy, is a movie that isn’t going to be remembered for the plot, the action sequences, or the acting. Even if it sweeps every single Academy Award for the 2005 movie season, that still wouldn’t be the reason that people remember this movie. It’s because of the off-screen shenanigans of its’ two main stars: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
Arguably the two most photogenic stars in all of Hollywood, Pitt and Jolie have features physically that are desired to have in many different ways. There aren’t too many people out there who wouldn’t want to have the physique that Pitt works hard to maintain. Combine that with an easy-going charisma and a magnetic charm and Pitt stands above his peers in the present in looks alone. He also happens to be a pretty good actor as well; he garnered an Academy Award nomination for Twelve Monkeys and critical acclaim for his parts in other movies, chief amongst them Fight Club.
Jolie is no slouch in either department; she won an Academy Award for her role in Girl, Interrupted and is universally recognized as one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood. Combining a smoldering sexuality with a shapely body, her acting and her beauty separate her from many an actress.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith follows the path of a married couple whose spark has long list left. John (Pitt) and Jane (Jolie) have reached the point in their married life that many couples face: it has come down to habit and routine instead of passion and excitement. The biggest change in their routine is when Jane adds in peas to dinner one night. This isn’t something new or ground-breaking, as movies like War of the Roses centered on couples whose flame of love had flickered out. But the one difference between the Smiths and every other couple trying to reignite their marriage is one simple thing: they’re super assassins.
Based loosely off the 1941 movie of the same name, Jolie and Pitt are the two best hired killers in the world. Their professions are unknown to everyone, including each other, as their professions are cloaked in mystery. John is a contractor and Jane works with Wall Street for a living, or at least that’s what they want the world to think. This all changes when both are hired for the same hit. Working for competing agencies, the duo are hired out for a hit on Benjamin (The O.C.’s Adam Brody).
The thing that stands about this movie is the chemistry between Jolie and Pitt. For all of publicity their private lives get in the public arena, on-screen Brad and Angelina have a chemistry that radiates off the screen. When the two are allowed to play off of each other, there is a solid story to be told about trying to mend a relationship on shaky ground. There are moments during the movie that the story really comes out; when allowed to tell a story by just interacting Jolie and Pitt do a wonderful job. The problem with all of this is that these moments are few and far between as unoriginal and boring action sequences coupled with generous amounts of bad dialogue disrupt the movie’s flow consistently.
If they were good action sequences it could only help but the action is unoriginal at best and boring at worst. While impressive in nature, they are oddly familiar in the fact that they are borrowed wholesome from other action movies. There isn’t any semblance of originally in any of the action sequences and they are also gratuitous in nature. Lyman settles into a predictable rhythm of what happens in each particular scene; after a certain amount of time there’s going to be an explosion, then maybe some gunfire and so forth. It’s predictable and it’s bad, but it doesn’t compare to the sort of dialogue that manages to permeate the movie.
When Pitt and Jolie are allowed to just play off each other, the movie doesn’t miss a beat. But when they are forced to use the writing on hand, the urge to be cutesy coupled with poor attempts at comedy slow the movie down to a screeching halt. There are too many times when the dialogue is forced; Pitt and Jolie have a chemistry that raises much of the dialogue from the scrap heap that two people without the same chemistry would have left it on. Chemistry is only so much, as eventually smart dialogue has to happen. It rarely does.
