Brief Story Line
Matt (Jamie Foxx - Spider-man: No Way Home, Sleepless etc) and his wife Emily (Cameron Diaz - There's Something About Mary, Shrek movies etc) were former CIA agents who stopped their work and started a family having two children, the 14 year old Alice (McKenna Roberts - Skyscraper etc) and 12 year old Leo (Ryland Jackson). One day, their CIA old friend Chuck (Kyle Chandler - The Midnight Sky, Game Night etc) suddenly told Matt and Emily that they were being chased by their old enemy.
The whole family had no choice but to escape to England to find Emily's estranged mother Ginny (Glenn Close - The Girl with All the Gifts, 101 Dalmations etc). Things become complicated with the MI6, headed by their agent Baron (Andrew Scott - 1917, Ripley mini series etc) were also chasing after Emily and Matt.
So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Well that was really fun. I thought this movie was successful in providing plenty of enjoyable moments. From the cool enough action sequence (even if few times the CGI looked a tinsy bit obvious), the chemistry of Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz, and the humor that somehow fit nicely with their characters. For almost 2 hours, I felt the movie was not boring and there were more than few times that I chuckled on the humorous scenes (though they are not up to hilarious level).
The story was not exactly original and the plot was definitely not the best element in this movie. But as an action comedy, it was sufficient to entertain me. There were a couple of twists towards the end with one could have been guessed easily, but the other one was rather surprising for me. That final scene was done surely to provide context should they think of making a sequel to this movie. It's too early to tell now, but from the past experience, only very few films were made into series by Netflix, so I would not get my hopes up yet. To make it worse, critics were not impressed at all as proven by the very low ratings, although audience seemed to be more receptive.
The highlight of this movie was the name of Cameron Diaz who had agreed to come out of her retirement from acting back in 2014. I read that it was Jamie Foxx (her co-star in one of her last movie then, Annie) who managed to convince Diaz to return. This movie was directed by Seth Gordon (Baywatch movie, Identity Thief etc) who also wrote it together with Brendan O'Brien (Neighbors, The House etc). Aside from those names above, there were other support cast such as Jamie Demetriou (Sherlock Gnomes, Game Over, Man! etc) as Nigel, Fola Evans-Akingbola (The Night Agent TV series, Ten Percent TV series etc) as Agent Wendy and Bashir Salahuddin (Family Switch, A Simple Favor etc) as Coach Chris. To be frank though, other than Diaz and Foxx, the rest of the cast even Glenn Close and Andrew Scott did not seem comfortable in their roles (at least for me). Well perhaps Jamie Demetriou was still OK in comical role.
Overall this is a film that's made purely for enjoyment purpose. I am not surprised by critics view as they tend to be critical in all aspects, but from casual audience point of view like myself, this is exactly what I needed after a hard day's work. A light and simple enough story with cool looking action and humor that would make us smile. And it was also nice to see Cameron Diaz again who I think has proven that she still got it when playing in comedic roles (She had such huge success in the past, particularly during the 1990s and 2000s). So if you are looking for a fun action comedy to light up your day, then I believe you would enjoy this. But if you are the more critical type, then it's possible you would be more agreeable with critics. I do still recommend that you give it a try, especially if you want to see Diaz back in action.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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