It’s your typical spy movie; two partners, best friends, one with an American accent and the other with a predictably British accent both with the overall goal of kicking bad guy butt and crossing names off of the FBI’s most wanted list. But in the name of the stereotypical young man, the two agents are reckless and careless. One small mistake, one blown cover, and the course of their lives is forever changed.
This is the basic plotline of the new McG directed movie “This Means War” staring Reese Witherspoon as Lauren, and Chris Pine and Tom Hardy as the federal agent duo FDR Foster and Tuck. FDR and Tuck make one fatal mistake in the process of taking down a Russian mob boss, better known as Heinrich (Til Schweiger). Instead, the two enrage Heinrich so much as to create a deep-seeded need for revenge to burn in him.
Enter Witherspoon’s character, Lauren. A forever-alone woman whose best friend Trish (Chelsea Handler) creates an account for her on an online dating website. This is how she meets Tuck. From there various twists and turns bring her to meet FDR, and both agents fall for the blonde. They make the decision to keep their friendship a secret from her as to allow her to make the decision of who she wants on her own. Pretty soon, the need to beat the other agent gets out of hand.
Sounds exciting, right? It has action, romance, comedy; all the fixings for a great movie. Unfortunately, as is usually the case, this film fell just short of greatness.
Maybe it is just I can’t take Chris Pine seriously in anything he does since he was in the “Princess Diaries” sequel. Maybe I just have a hard time seeing Witherspoon as anything other than spunky Elle Woods from “Legally Blonde.” Either way, after all of the promos and trailers for the film, I had much higher expectations than what I saw on the big screen.
The storyline was cute enough, but it was just that: cute. The whole plot was predictable, which is probably the main reason as to why I found myself sitting there bored only about a half hour into the movie. By the time the climax came around, I was already for the film to be over. I was most disappointed with the ending of the movie, however. It ended with a scene of the two agents, on the job once again, having a quick heart-to-heart before they continue on. The supposed-to-be-funny dialogue completely offset the tone of the heartwarming conclusion. While “funny” ending scenes may be the norm for romantic comedies, I found it off-putting and overall out of place with the ending.
“This Means War” was a typical, run of the mill romantic comedy with weak characters, and lukewarm acting. If the plot had been a little more developed and the characters cast with different actors it might have been a better movie. As a whole, it was just another feeble attempt at Hollywood to put out a more male-friendly romantic comedy by means of Russian accents and explosions.