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Mild-mannered Bob (Jackie Chan), right, teaches a Russian spy manners in the broad, insufferably condescending comedy “The Spy Next Door.” |
Brian Levant’s “The Spy Next Door” is being marketed as a family comedy, but for action movie fans, it’s truly a tragedy.
Jackie Chan, one of the greatest and most popular Hong Kong action movie stars, has been reduced to “acting” in this poorly written, badly directed, amateurishly performed and insufferably condescending movie.
Chan joins the elite group of action stars who’ve made the quantum leap into disappointing kiddie comedies: Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Kindergarten Cop” and “Jingle All the Way,” Vin Diesel in “The Pacifier” and Sylvester Stallone in “Spy Kids 3-D.”
Apparently, hack family comedies are where action movie careers go to die.
In “The Spy Next Door,” Chan plays Bob Ho, a mild-mannered nerd who lives next to single mom Gillian (Amber Valletta) and her three precocious kids, tough teen Farren (Madeline Carroll), rambunctious Ian (Will Shadley) and cute little 4-year-old Nora (Alina Foley).
Bob is really a secret agent from China working on special loan to the CIA, mainly Agent Colton James (singer Billy Ray Cyrus in a robotic performance that screams “Don’t Give Up Your Day Job”) and his boss, Director Glaze (George Lopez).
Bob wants to marry Gillian, but her kids hate him and accuse him of being square.
When Gillian leaves home to take care of her ailing father, Bob begs for the chance to baby-sit her children so they can get to know each other. Gillian isn’t sure.
“I’ve brought down dictators,” Bob says. “How tough can three kids be?”
Cue the kiddie shenanigans. (Read more…)