There’s something about this Diaz comeback vehicle that fails.
A decade ago, after a terrible year for movies (“The Other Woman,” “Gambit,” “Sex Tape,” and “Annie”), Cameron Diaz went into retirement from acting because she got tired of traveling for filming. She comes out of it to star in some new movies, including the latest Netflix action comedy “Back in Action” and the upcoming long-awaited sequel “Shrek 5.” For now, we’re talking about “Back in Action,” which is far cry from a comeback vehicle.
Like Ke Huy Quan, Brendan Fraser, Eddie Murphy, and Meg Ryan, Diaz deserves to make a career comeback, but at this point, she needs to come back from the 2000s and actually get a script that’s actually worth hers and our time.
I guess they thought it would be original that she and Jamie Foxx would play C.I.A. spies who retire to become parents and then find themselves back in the game when their cover is blown by the obligatory YouTube video. He is Matt and she is Emily, and their kids are the teenage Alice (McKenna Roberts) and tech Leo (Rylan Jackson). I’m pretty sure this movie has been watching “The Family Plan” too much, and that was a crappy movie.
The parents manage to fight some people at a nightclub their daughter uses a fake I.D. to get inside to, and when she questions their combat skills, they think she’s stupid to believe that they took a few weeks course during their PeaceCorps mission. And even when they have to take their kids to England on short notice and fight some mercenaries at a gas station, they still think they’re stupid to understand.
But soon, they confess their spy lives. And they also introduce them to Emily’s estranged mother Ginny (Glenn Close with a British accent), who chose the spy life over motherhood. Ergo, we have the tedious mother-daughter issues, especially when the old lady believes that British people don’t hug. But we already had them the minute Alice decided to get that fake I.D.
I don’t even think “Back in Action” knows the meaning of the word “comedy,” because the jokes have to resort to the dad warning the wife not to take their daughter’s phone or she’ll give them the death stare. That and the fact that Leo is better at shooting ninja stars than his grandma’s assistant Nigel (Jamie Demetriou) is. You know what? I actually think that boy is a lot smarter than his parents think they are. How could they not see that their boy has inherited their fighting skills?
Its most entertaining action sequence plays to the tune of James Brown’s “Papa’s Gotta Brand New Bag.” And it has the right kind of lighting and energy, unlike the cliches the movie suffers from.
“The Mask,” “There’s Something About Mary,” “Shrek,” “Vanilla Sky,” and “Being John Malkovich” are among Diaz’s much better movies. “Back in Action” is one of her weakest efforts, along with “Very Bad Things,” “The Other Woman,” and “What Happens in Vegas,” among others. She should get a much better comeback, but she’s woefully miscast here as the spy who becomes the generic mom.
The movie was directed by Seth Gordon, whose funniest film is “Horrible Bosses,” which also featured Foxx. He hasn’t made a good movie since, coming on the heels of “Identity Thief” and “Baywatch.” And not even Foxx can shake things up with the screenplay. It’s like it thinks that his attitude is what makes his character entertaining. But it doesn’t.
All this movie knows is that Netflix streamers will make it a hit.
Streaming on Netflix
