As we put this thing on I told my girlfriend that I remember it coming out and that I didn't deign to see it as this was the height of my "art film only" phase.
The thing about this movie is mainly this: we are in such dire circumstances now that this seems really fun and better in retrospect than it probably did at the time. Real actors, sharing the same space, in real sets, with real effects, and with actual squibs and liquid fake blood - nowadays this is all CGI. Its just insane that this was likely shot in film paying A list movie stars the height of their billing asks, it was all done practically and filmed in LA, like this sort of film just does not exist now, every aspect of this has changed.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith are both secretly assassins, they're married to each other and hit a rocky patch in their relationship, and eventually learn the truth about each other. They are set against each other and fight, only to get turned on and begin to fall back in love, team up and take on the other assassins of the world.
The movie moves well. There was a moment early on when internally my head said, "okay I get it with the setup, move into the actual plot" and it did moments later. This is oldschool Hollywood in a lot of ways, such as even the direction by not an auteur, just classic journeyman direction style of Doug Liman who quietly has what like 5 of the better undersung action movies of the last 25 years?
I appreciate that this era was what it was now, when everything is overblown and over budget despite being all shot on green screen with actors Zooming in their entire part and yet somehow it does $100 million over budget? I mean seriously, how did things get so bad so fast...a question we're all asking these days, about many things. This isn't like the best movie ever not even great among its peers but it's a fine Tuesday night thing to watch with a few glasses of wine, like I did. I give it 3 stars.
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