Over the past few years, Netflix has, to various degrees, made gestures toward bringing beloved box-office stars from Millennial childhoods like Lindsay Lohan, Winona Ryder, Drew Barrymore, or Rob Schneider back into the spotlight. With their latest project, the recipient of this nostalgic attention is Cameron Diaz, coaxed out of her retirement/hiatus after roughly a decade to team up with Jamie Foxx — the pair previously appeared together in 1999’s Any Given Sunday and 2014’s Annie, though this reflects their first time partnering as a leading duo — in Seth Gordon’s action-comedy Back in Action, its title boasting both a certain “welcome back” warmness for Diaz and an obvious throwback resonance for the film to follow.
Here, Diaz and Foxx portray a kick-ass C.I.A. couple, Emily and Matt, who, after an introductory prelude detailing their last mission together (including realizing Emily’s unexpected pregnancy with their soon-to-be firstborn), decide to take a permanent break from their perilous and adventurous job and instead live a normal family life of peace and ease. This mutual agreement of the film’s opening quickly leads viewers to the present-day of “15 years later” where the couple have successfully concealed their yesteryear identities and left the action-packed troubles behind, now living in a beautiful suburban home with their two young kids: the 14-year-old, mildly rebellious Alice (McKenna Roberts) and 12-year-old, tech-savvy Leo (Rylan Jackson). Of course, the irony is that Emily and Matt’s current headaches as two ordinary (and, in their children’s eyes, decidedly uncool) parents are by no means lesser than those of their past — especially with regard to Alice, who’s going through the usual teenage angst that revolves around young “love,” unapproved clubbing, etc. Also predictable is that the calm of their present circumstance always had an expiration date, which soon appears at the door and forces Emily and Matt out familial mundanity and on the run, kids in tow.
Although Back in Action has a built-in ceiling and both explicitly and intentionally builds itself atop the bones of action-comedy 101 scripts, especially those of the late-aughts variety — most notably, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Knight and Day (also starring Diaz) and, yes, The Incredibles — it would be unfair, at least for its first hour or so, to harshly dismiss it as mere retroism. The truth is that a big part of Back in Action’s initial strength and delightful humor builds from its lively intergenerational dynamics and its embrace of the chaos that stems from these contrasting POVs. This is perhaps unsurprising, as both Diaz and Foxx have proven their easy screen charisma and charm across the years, qualities that help elevate even the most generic of projects, but they also demonstrate an easy and appealing rapport with the two young actors. This in turn allows Gordon’s eye-candy executions to function in service of both a series of authentically playful, slice-of-life moments of familial hi-jinks as well as the more bombastically-inclined and larger-than-life set pieces, which are themselves infused with a dose of genuine humor.
Unfortunately, the film’s flaws begin to demonstrably creep in during its second half, after the family arrives at Emily’s English mother’s country manor outside of London and a development wherein Alice and Leo are kidnapped by the film’s baddies. From this point on, Back in Action loses most of its heretofore successful focus on the film’s central quartet and instead heavily skews toward little more than an abundance of narrative clichés, visual shenanigans, and some cartoonishly subsidiary characters played by Glenn Close, Jamie Demetriou, Kyle Chandler, and Andrew Scott, which has the effect of diluting the film with bog standard action sequences (a couple of motorbike and boat chases, punctuated with some fistfights and shootings in between) that lacks the adrenaline needed to resolve any of this in a creative way. Put differently, though the film still arguably acquits itself as popcorn entertainment better than many modern-day streaming actioners — does anyone remember superstar-headlined absolute nothings like The Gray Man or Heart of Stone, for instance? — and functions as a successful reminder of Diaz’s affable screen presence, it’s still almost painful to watch Back in Action abruptly spoil everything that is unique, charming, and witty in its first half for the sake of second-rate spectacle and overfamiliar trope-trading. The primary mistake the film makes, then, is in assuming its strength lies in its flexing muscles rather than its more amiable, easygoing wiles.
DIRECTOR: Seth Gordon; CAST: Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz, McKenna Roberts, Kyle Chandler, Glenn Close; DISTRIBUTOR: Netflix; STREAMING: January 17; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 54 min.
Comments are closed.