A weird, crazy action comedy starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. I think a lot of people remember this movie as being a bomb, but it's grossed over $250M worldwide.
The story: Diaz gets on a plane to go to her sister's wedding and meets a handsome man (Cruise) who it turns out is a super spy wanted by the government for stealing this device and now the government is after them to get it back.
Was it good?
Yes. Kind of. Maybe. In a weird way, but yeah, I guess I'd say yes. Maybe.
First I want to say I watches this movie right after watching the comedy The Other Guys (recommended, see review). That's an over-the-top action comedy with emphasis on the comedy. This movie made a nice second feature to that. If I hadn't seen that movie first, I don't know that I would have liked this one. It's a weird combination of over-the-top action and comedy with some quiet character work thrown in there too. Now, for me it worked as this over-the-top comedy. But I can see some people not getting it. Tom Cruise isn't a comedy guy and the way the story is written it seems to want to be a lot more grounded than it is. It's like it wanted to be SALT, and then got twisted into THE OTHER GUYS, so there are some problems all around. The comedy is uneven, and Tom Cruise doesn't feels awkward as an action/comedy star, and Diaz has great energy for comedy, but her character is supposed to be more grounded so that doesn't really work either. During the first half I thought they should have reversed them -- get a comedic star for the action hero role (which is so o-t-t it's hard to imagine anyone taking it seriously) and then a more dramatic actress for the female lead so that the role can be grounded and have some emotion. However, after thinking about it I'm not sure. Maybe this is what's needed to even out the two sides, much like THE OTHER GUYS has a comedic actor paired with a dramatic actor.
It's a tough call. This is a movie that had a lot of cool, neat things, but also a lot of problems. Like I said, watching it right after T-O-GUYS made it work for me, but I can understand the people that had problems with it. Still since it worked for me, I'm going to give it a slight recommend.
*** SLIGHT RECOMMEND (especially as the second in a double feature with THE OTHER GUYS) ***
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