KILLERS, NOT SO KILLING

“Lets just say that I work for the blah.blah.blah and they gave me a licence to blah”.

Mr and Mrs Smith meets the comedic prowess of Ashton Kutcher in this action comedy.

Basic Premise:
A secret agent gives up the game for marriage and suburban bliss, until there’s a price on his head and people start coming for him. He and his wife fight for their lives, balancing neighbours, in-laws and not knowing who to trust.

A buffed out Ashton Kutcher (What happens in Vegas) makes for a surprisingly realistic secret agent while cutting his teeth at producing the movie at the same time.

Katherine Heigl serves up the exact same character as in her other films Knocked Up and The Ugly Truth. Tight -laced, gracious, and adapts with ease to any situation. Here-in lies the flaw, she flits between cries of “I can’t believe my husband used to kill people” and actually aiding in killing people with such ease that it makes her character’s relationship with the audience very unstable.

Hollywood rolled out the big guns to play the father-in-law, that of Tom Selleck (Magnum P.I, Friends, Las Vegas).

Most of the laughs come from the alcoholic mother-in- law who boozes her way through the film with ever increasing goblet sizes.

Something just doesn’t sit right with this film. It tries to cover two worlds too quickly resulting in a superficial view of both. If you’re going the spy route, go the whole way, with secret dens of high tech gear, hard to break codes and more. This film glosses over that with a barely waterproof layer of the spy world, a common suburban look and flippant violence ensuing for the rest. The beginning drags and its hard to get into as the film struggles to find its tone and comedic voice.

The one dimensional characters, action and light-heartedness will make this movie a good first date / Saturday night ‘kick back and not have to think’ film. Boyfriends won’t have to be dragged to the cinema by their girlfriends. There are enough explosions, car chases and deaths to keep the “chick flick” label at bay.

There are some little nuggets of comedic genius in this film, but they’re buried under a heap of what can only be described as (and I steal from Kutcher’s character when I say) “blah”.

TRAILERS, THE ENEMY

I had been looking forward to It's Complicated for months and months with ever increasing excitemnt as the trailer for the film saturated the media. It appeared upbeat, funny, a romantic comedy with the inivation of stars over 50. And then I watched it, and was crushed. The tone of the trailer reflected nothing of the tone of the actual movie. Every single humerous part was put into the trailer so I had seen it all already. Its Complicated in isolation is an exceptional film. But I went into it with completely preformed perceptions. Lets just say that while the film ended my hunger, I was not served what was advertised on the menu and it was not that appetizing as a result.

The trailer certainly generated excitement and got people to watch the film (its grossed over 200 million so far). But that begs the question - are trailers merely meant to boost sales or should they have an artistic obligation to corretly reflect the tone of the film?

From the very beginning, there will be a built in demographic. Film makers need to stick to that demographic. Don't tweek the trailer and mislead us purely for a wider demographic and a wider profit.