Movie Review: Mr. and Mrs. Smith

Mr. and Mrs. Pitt... er, uh... Smith

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are stars. No doubt about it. If you need proof just watch Mr. and Mrs. Smith—a super secret spy/assassin/black ops (never defined) farce about two people from two competing agencies get married and then get assigned to kill each other. At least that was the impression I got from the trailers, but it turns out in the movie, the fact that they were assigned to kill each other was supposed to be a secret that was revealed two-thirds into the movie. Oh well, just another movie that had some secrets of the plot blown by the trailer.

Anyway, back to the “Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are stars” conversation. Who can question it when they are put in a movie together with—aside from Vince Vaughn in his throwaway role—not one single other recognizable actor and a gigantic budget to pull off some of the most spectacular explosions and gun/fist fights you’ll ever see pulled off in a suburban neighborhood. Because it has these two stars in it, I’m sure the studio knew that they would bring in the box office numbers so they could throw the extra budget into it to make it something exciting and well executed.

And they pull it off too. It’s a fun ride. The cinematography was very well done—except for some unexplained shaky camera moves. The thing that was lacking was an emotional attachment. I think it’s interesting that their names were John and Jane Smith because these were really generic performances for these actors. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were exactly the same people I’ve seen interviewed by Barbara Walters. There were some moments that could have been touching that I thought fell flat—Possibly because it was such a Pitt-Jolie vehicle—with little or no acting going on at all.

I would recommend this movie to anyone who is up for a good roller coaster ride. There’s plenty of action and eye-candy to interest the most casual of viewers. But don’t go looking for any heart or back-story, what you see is what you get.