Starts fresh but ends stale

Rating: 7/10 (20 July 2005)

"Bourne Identity' was a great film because it tried to keep you anchored in the real world. "Swingers" was great because it knew where to draw the line at 'over the top'. This movie tries to have it both ways. How can 'over the top' action scenes be taken seriously? Evidently, we are supposed to take this film's premise very lightly. But yet, there is some hardcore violence and death of a lot of good guys. How can we have any empathy for a loving couple that are being hunted, when they survive thousands of bullets with nary a scratch? M&MS does not know when to draw that line. I am reminded of moments in the series "The Sopranos", which also juxtaposes violence with humor. You can only allow so much humor before you start to lose interest, and you can only take so much violence before you lose your taste for the story.
The screenplay shines when it examines secrecy between married couples, and lets the characters work it out for themselves. But the third act of the film disposes a great deal of character development for standard Hollywood Action scenes. The action scenes, while technically well executed, become tedious. I was rooting for this film, because it started off as a fun and smart film. I lost it when it stretched the material and launched into cookie cutter cliché action scenes. "Bourne Identity" had action scenes that represented real peril to the lead characters, but M&MS has action scenes that make it obvious that the lead characters are more like cartoons.
By the third act, my enthusiasm waned. I was surprised when I walked out to find the movie was only 2 hours long, because the way the second half of this film dragged made it feel more like 2 and ½ hours. I wouldn't say I felt duped, thinking the gimmick of this film would've been handled in a smarter fashion. It's just that the number implausibilities caught up with me to the point that I had to reject the entire film. Wait for the DVD.