Rated PG for sequences of action violence and some mild rude humor.
Directed by Brian Levant (Scooby Doo! The Mystery Begins and Are We There Yet?)
Starring Jackie Chan, George Lopez, Billy Ray Cyrus and Amber Valletta
The Spy Next Door stars Jackie Chan as Bob Ho, an undercover CIA superspy who decides to give up his career in espionage to settle down with his next-door neighbor and girlfriend, Gillian (Amber Valletta). But Bob has one more mission to complete before Gillian agrees to marry him: winning over her three opinionated kids. When Gillian suddenly has to leave town, Bob volunteers to babysit the children so he can earn their approval. But when one of the kids mistakenly downloads a top-secret formula from his computer, Bob’s archenemy, a Russian terrorist, moves in for the attack, forcing Bob to juggle the roles of spy and prospective stepfather in the most challenging mission of his career!
JONATHAN’S WORD: Let me save some time and just summarize this review. This movie is probably one of the worst movies I’ve seen in a year!
TODD’S WORD: I’m glad we agree on this one. I normally judge films like this by the reaction of my kids. If I’m rolling my eyes but they are cracking up…it usually gets a higher score. So when we were about an hour into it and my daughter looked at me and said, “Dad is this movie almost over?” I knew this was going to be an easy review to write.
JONATHAN’S WORD: That’s hilarious. My kids were saying that at 10 minutes. “Dad, do we really have to watch this?” Funny side note. My daughter Ashley begged if we could watch Dumb and Dumber instead. What’s that tell you!
TODD’S WORD: I agree with Ashley. For me, Jackie Chan’s appeal has always been his lightening fast moves and knowing that he was doing all his own stunts. For this film, some of the best scenes are the outtakes that run over the closing credits.
JONATHAN’S WORD: Yeah, the closing credits were a God send… mostly because that meant that the film was over!
TODD’S WORD: When I first saw Rush Hour and Shanghi Noon, I was really impressed with Jackie’s humor. Unfortunately, The Spy Next Door was lacking in both the action and humor departments.
JONATHAN’S WORD: It was painful to watch. There were so many moments where people were just reading lines. That really reflects on the director. Very poor directing.
TODD’S WORD: And I have to laugh at the cast. George Lopez is Chan’s supervisor as the CIA director (implying he possesses superior intelligence) and Billy Ray Cyrus is another spy (implying that he too possesses…never mind I can’t even say it). I’m still not sure which one is more ridiculous. The kids are ok – I mean how much can you expect for child actors. But Amber Valletta is just horrible.
JONATHAN’S WORD: I can’t argue one bit. Billy Ray’s acting skills are about as good as his parenting!
TODD’S WORD: I really hate trashing movies that are intended for families…but this one was truly difficult to watch. The story has been done to death, the cast is ridiculous, the director is a one trick pony and the movie is a Coaster.
JONATHAN’S WORD: This movie is worse than a coaster. It’s a Frisbee!
SHOULD KIDS SEE IT?
There is nothing offensive, but nothing entertaining either.
Conversation Starter
Three Simple Questions (with Answers You May Be Looking for):
- What are some of the messages or themes you observed in this movie?
- How do you suppose we—as serious Christ-followers—should react to this movie?
- How can we move from healthy, Bible-based opinions about this movie to actually living out those opinions?
