Even with it's tongue in it's cheek, not very enjoyable...

Rating: 4/10 (7 July 2005)

STAR RATING: ***** The Works **** Just Misses the Mark *** That Little Bit In Between ** Lagging Behind * The Pits
After meeting and starting a fiery romance in Bogata, Columbia, John (Brad Pitt) and Jane (Angelina Jolie) are now a happily married suburban couple going on for five years of marriage. But then they learn that they are both, well, secret agents and that their next assignments is to, well, kill each other. Cue complications and comedic capers from there...
Nothing gets a bad film rolling quite like publicity. Especially when that publicity becomes bigger than the actual film itself. The publicity in this case being the supposed 'Brad and Angelina' romance that sparked up on the set of Mr & Mrs Smith, rumoured to being behind the big tabloidy break-up of Hollywood golden couple Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. No doubt Mr & Mrs Smith has raked in considerable takings at the box office as a result. And it seems all the bad reviews and the actual poor quality of the film can't change that...
I'm not sure if it was aware of it or not, but the whole thing just seems like some big spin on Schwarzenegger's 1994 hit True Lies. But nowhere near the quality. As events roll on, the absurdity of the plot just gets at you so much, you really know this is a part-comedic film with it's tongue in it's cheek, but the stupidity of it all reeks just the same. The action itself is a collection of the usual loud bangs and thuds that we've been seeing in movies lately. Interspersed in one of these scenes is a supposedly 'comedic' bit, where Pitt and Jolie engage in some hand-to-hand combat in their home, where you can't help but think of the growing amount of domestic abuse cases in the country and how some weak-minded individual may see that and be tempted to go home one night and re-enact some of that on their spouse. There is a disturbingly casual attitude to violence and aggression hinted at throughout the entire film, but that is the one that stuck in my mind the hardest.
Performances wise, Pitt is his usual wooden self and Vince Vaughn is incredibly irritating as his on-screen buddy. Adam Brody is an impressively sarcastic villain and Jolie has an incredibly sultry, sexy presence to her (as usual), but doesn't really rise to any great heights in her role.
Overall, this is a daft, unfunny and pretty unsuccessful film that, for the most part, just fails miserably to do anything right and has only done as well as it has by falling on the band-wagon of all the superfluous off-screen publicity it's two leading stars have generated between them. **