Good idea that eventually gets lost in a spray of bullets

Rating: 4/10 (23 June 2008)

The premise of Mr. & Mrs. Smith is strong: a husband and wife, married for years, have no idea they're spies/assassins for competing agencies. For the first 45 minutes or so, this seems to play out quite well and leads to many amusing sequences. There's a clever opening scene where we see them together in marriage counseling. This is followed by their silent, passive/aggressive dinners together which are quite funny. We learn that he hides his spy equipment in a place she'll never look: a secret compartment under the tool shed. She hides her spy gear in a place he'll never look: a secret compartment under the oven. Even the first assassinations we see are done in a clever, memorable fashion. How about Jolie posing as a dominatrix to take out her target?
Sadly, when the Smiths' secrets are revealed, the movie begins to unravel quickly. At first the Smiths try to eliminate each other, but predictably they eventually have to team up against their former employers as they are now the targets. What follows is the predictable revelation that they have actually loved each other all along. This leads to a lot of flirty and aggressive banter during action sequences; while the banter seems fun at first, it gets stale very fast.
Pitt and Jolie definitely have chemistry as the leads, but it is mostly lost in the never-ending shootout scene that is the last hour of the movie. We have to watch countless inept bad guys walk right into the line of fire as our heroes effortlessly gun down everything in their path. At this point the film feels like a poor installment in the Lethal Weapon series, where the bad guys are there just for target practice and dramatic effect.
Ultimately, all the cleverness and intelligence that was established early in the film is lost. We're left with a bad action movie and stereotypical scenes we've seen done better a thousand times before. A very disappointing finish given the film's promising start.