Glorious, Nourishing Eye Candy

Rating: 7/10 (2 July 2005)

Sometimes my taste in movies is as shallow as a puddle. 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith' is proof because, man, I love that poster. When you've got beauty like THAT to market your film, to hell with a plot. With Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie looking their spectacular best in this action-romance flick, I was too hypnotized by the beautiful people to be upset about the flimsy story. If you want an assassin story directed by Doug Liman with depth...well, go rent 'The Bourne Identity'. His latest picture might be vapid, but he lets his stars gloss over most of the plot holes.
Pitt & Jolie play John & Jane Smith. Neither spouse knows that the other has a secret life as a "hitter" for an underground government agency. Their day-to-day lives are a crashing bore because they've got to pretend to be white-collar drones who make scads of money. Then they're assigned to rub each other out and life is no longer such a yawn for the Smiths. That's the story and it takes about 2 hours to tell it. Even with such an over-long running time, there's no real ending. It just sort of...ends.
The biggest brain-turned-on complaint is this---for people who kill for a living, they're both remarkably bland about it. In fairness, though, the movie is saucy and sexy. They've got chemistry and they exchange some nifty banter. I liked how Jane is better at the job than John, partly because Jolie is more believable than Pitt as an ruthless killer. At least he puts his usual goofy spin on the character. When Pitt gets to relax, he has more fun than most Hollywood heartthrobs get to. So take a date and see 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith' make love and murder. They're pretty good at both.