GamerTab
That was an excellent one.
Nonureva
Really Surprised!
Rosie Searle
It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.
Sarah Stallworth
My daughter was watching the movie and I noticed a scene where Jackie Chan was trying to dress the little girl on the floor as she struggled with him.At one point (while she was in her underwear) she is laying directly in front of him on her back and begins kicking him. While doing so, her legs are open and showing a bit more than I felt comfortable with. In a few seconds the camera zooms in and clearly shows between her legs much closer, showing the looseness of the underwear and it was extremely unnecessary.For this reason, I won't give this movie a 10. With the people who had to sign off on the movie before it went to theaters, etc... this should have been spotted and revised.
nonprofitgnome1
For the immense Jackie Chan fan that I am, I am disappointed with myself that I waited this long to see The Spy Next Door. Jackie brings a comedic vibe to all his movies that not many can emulate. I went in with fairly high hopes for this family comedy and wasn't let down.The plot is your basic "spy who can't let the people closest to him know who he is". With The Spy Next Door, you get a tad bit of a romantic comedy with a lot Jackie action mixed in. Yes, the plot has been done to death but it serves it's purpose and was executed well enough.The main reason we all sat down to watch the movie is because of Jackie Chan. The guy just seems to genuinely love to act. He is able to make you laugh one minute and then take out five bad guys the next. He is obviously toned down in this movie than some of his other more action oriented films but he still shows off his superior martial arts skills.Other than Jackie, the cast was alright, nothing to special. The kids did their job well enough to not detract from the movie. The one oddball casting that I really didn't enjoy was Billy Ray Cyrus. I'm not a hug Cyrus fan to begin with but even so he truly felt out of place here.Other than that small casting decision, I think this is an excellent family movie. With Jackie Chan's comedy and action there is a little bit of something for everyone to enjoy. It's definitely a better "family" movie than a lot of the other crap releasing in the past couple years. It truly brings me back to the days when I enjoyed family movies as much as any other genre (it has been quite some time).*For any Jackie fans out there, yes, the usual outtake real does come before this one just like all of his other movies and as allows its a must watch.
dr-hangso
Which leaves The Spy Next Door pretty much a departure from contemporary adventure flicks which tend to draw upon violence and gore in its action sequences, to keep it within a safe, acceptable rating. Jackie Chan plays Bob Ho, a man with as much personality as his any of his past heroes, which tend to be cop / secret agent belonging to the Hong Kong / Chinese police / spy agency, and here he's on loan to the CIA because of warming Sino-US relations. For years he's been helping out and solving what the Americans cannot, keeping in line with Hollywood's trend of putting China in good light, and he does so undercover and under fake glasses, living next to a divorcée (played by Amber Valletta) whom he fancies, and her three kids.They do not know his identity as his cover is as a geeky pen salesman, and like any super- hero film, has to keep his identity, abilities and tools a secret, which you know will be threatened for exposure as he grows closer to the family, wanting to take his relationship with Valletta's Gillian to the next step, and working toward seeking acceptance from her children, only for a Russian criminal to escape and threaten the world's oil reserve, and having to grapple with a mole within the CIA. Sounds complicated, but it actually isn't, really, especially when the main villain (Magnus Scheving) spends a lot of his time trying to look trendy and fashionable.If there's something that will appeal, it'll be two items. First up the opening credit montage which played like a celebration to Chan's illustrious career as an action hero, where you get to see clips from classics such as Hong Kong's Armour of God when he was at his peak, to disasters like Hollywood's Tuxedo when he sold out to the West. Then there's even some drawing from Chan's own real life experiences in his character's monologue about love and family, exploited to add certain emotional gravitas in an otherwise empty film that spends fleeting moments in its underdeveloped subplots about the adventures in parenting/babysitting, from the youngest daughter with a fetish for anything pink, the only son who's a school-bully fodder trying too hard to be cool in school, and an eldest daughter with the usual rebellious teenage attitude problem.
Charles Herold (cherold)
This is a very silly movie, but I quite enjoyed it. Jackie Chan doesn't do the crazy dangerous stunts he used to, but his brand of comedic martial arts is still entertaining. The kids are reasonably realistic, with only one being somewhat annoying precocious. There are some nice bits, like a running joke involving a criminal's wardrobe. The story doesn't make a lot of sense, especially since the McGuffin of the film would probably be far more lucrative in cleaning up the environment than for the impractical purpose the bad guys have in mind, but this movie isn't supposed to be anything more than a cute silly movie, and I thought it succeeded in that admirably.
