might be more fun
The relentlessly hyped Brad Pitt-Angelina Jolie vehicle “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” may very well crack audiences up, though it remains to be seen whether most will be laughing for reasons the film-makers intended, or at the blessed ridiculousness of it all. It says here the latter is likely to be the case, at least among those judicious enough to limit their U.S. Weekly consumption to airports and doctors’ waiting rooms. Doug Liman turned in some notably solid work at the helm of both the indie comedy “Swingers” and the big-budget action flick “The Bourne Identity,” but his attempt to meld the genres in “Smith” proves to be as problematic as the fallout from the purported marriage-wrecking affair between the film’s mega-stars.
With so much ado being made about their off-screen canoodling, any director would be hard-pressed to command the viewers’ focus. Let’s face it, there’s a love-hate relationship between two contract killers at the core of the fictional “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” but a majority of the ticket-buying public seems more interested in the real life marital strife of Mr. and Mrs. Pitt.
But that ain’t all that’s wrong with this movie. While there are some genuinely funny scenes scattered throughout, any sustained pleasure that might have been derived from John and Jane Smith’s snappy repartee is mitigated by Liman’s insistence on placing spectacle ahead of substance. Explosions, car chases, high-tech gadgetry and stylized gunplay abound, but there’s a “been there, done that” quality to the action that wears thin long before the movie’s 120 minutes have run their course. As written by Simon Kinberg (“XXX: State of the Union”), the Smiths are a couple of pretty stiffs leading pretty preposterous double lives in a world that bears little resemblance to the one us mere mortals inhabit. Vince Vaughn is a hoot in a limited role as a mama’s boy assassin, but he represents the sole interesting supporting character. Pitt and Jolie are sublime physical specimens who generate plenty of heat when they’re rubbing up against each other, but the fire in “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” is forgettable.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 10, 2005. Read the original PDF.