honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, June 10, 2005

Pitt, Jolie sizzle in wildly entertaining 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith'

By Jack Garner
Gannett News Service

MR. AND MRS. SMITH (PG-13) Three-and-a-Half Stars (Good-to-Excellent)

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie ignite a 20-megaton cherry bomb in Doug Liman's sassy and wildly entertaining action comedy. It just may be the most fun you'll have at the multiplex this summer. Directed by Doug Liman. 20th Century Fox, 115 minutes.

Movie chemistry is almost impossible to define or predict. Some screen duos bore us silly because they look like they're boring each other silly. Other actors are blessed to come together and spark fireworks. When it works, nobody knows why. But who cares?

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie ignite a 20-megaton cherry bomb in "Mr. & Mrs. Smith," Doug Liman's sassy and wildly entertaining action comedy. It just may be the most fun you'll have at the multiplex this summer.

Sure, the speculation that Pitt and Jolie ignited real fireworks will attract people to the theater. But if it ain't on the screen, what's the point? Trust us, it's on the screen.

Pitt and Jolie play John and Jane Smith. They're "five or six years" into a marriage that's gone dull and lifeless. They're seeing a marriage counselor (in a clever cinematic device that has them talking to the screen). They have a very upscale house and both supposedly have lucrative jobs. Neither knows that the other has put up a smoke screen. In truth, each is a polished, professional assassin for hire. They work for competing, high-tech covert companies.

After they inadvertently cross paths on a job, messing up their assignments, each is assigned to "take out" the other. Since the marriage is on the skids, that's not really a stretch. That's where "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" finds its footing as an explosive, guns-blazing variation of "The War of the Roses."

Delivering slam-bang action isn't a big challenge — lots of action movies get that part right. (And so does "Mr. & Mrs. Smith," with fabulous car chases and shootouts — and a spousal slugfest you won't believe.)

But getting the characters and comedy right? Now that's a challenge. Director Liman (of "The Bourne Identity" and "Swingers") and screenwriter Simon Kinberg got it right.

Despite the familiar, modern action trappings, "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" is much more about love and marriage than murder and mayhem. And it's constructed as witty, fast-paced and funny as the better comedies of Hollywood's screwball era. Masters like Howard Hawks, Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges would feel surprisingly at home, although all the weaponry and explosions in such a film might confuse them.

Both Pitt and Jolie display considerable comedic skill. Both dive enthusiastically into the high-energy physicality of the film, but they also offer hilarious reactions and asides. And fueling it all, of course, is that much-discussed sexual tension, as two very good-looking people come together like nitro and glycerin.

Rated PG-13, with lots of nonbloody violence, implied sex.