The generic title of the brand new Netflix action-comedy Again in Motion may consult with each the film’s pedestrian story and to the solely unrelated cause that folks is likely to be considering watching it. Our protagonists are Emily and Matt, two romantically concerned CIA super-operatives who retire into anonymity as a consequence of Emily’s being pregnant, solely to be drawn again into spy-movie shenanigans years later. However that’s all harking back to bits and items of higher films, together with Kill Invoice Vol. 2 and Mr. & Mrs. Smith. The actual lure is in who’s enjoying this in-from-the-cold couple: Cameron Diaz, popping out of a decade-long retirement from performing, and Jamie Foxx, who largely sat 2024 out following the stroke that delayed the manufacturing and launch of Again in Motion. In different phrases, two main film stars have returned and reteamed for some popcorn leisure. Too unhealthy this explicit piece of popcorn leisure could not in the end muster whilst a lot pleasure as Diaz and Foxx’s two earlier films collectively.
That these two earlier Diaz/Foxx tasks had been a sports activities drama (Any Given Sunday) and a musical (the 2014 remake of Annie) could point out why Again of Motion’s subtext about glamorous professionals returning to what they do greatest falls a little bit flat. Sure, each stars appeared of their share of light-weight leisure, just like the winkingly cartoonish Charlie’s Angels or the caper-like Horrible Bosses (directed, like Again in Motion, by Seth Gordon). However their eclectic careers haven’t been dominated by the form of star-studded, immediately forgotten sorta-action sorta-comedy that has flourished on streaming in recent times. (Suppose Pink Discover, Ghosted, Position Play, The Union, and Argylle.)
These streaming spy films all strive for a mixture of escapism and laughs by juxtaposing cartoonishly high-tech espionage with humdrum day-to-day life. Again in Motion is more proficient at depicting the latter, because the couple struggles with their tech-savvy youthful son Leon (Rylan Jackson) and particularly their rebellious older daughter Alice (McKenna Roberts). Emily is the extra overprotective father or mother, whereas Matt does his greatest to remain laid again, a dynamic that the 2 stars play with a straightforward, affable chemistry. They’re sweetly plausible, in a sitcom type of method, and it’s novel to see the once-indomitable secret weapon of Diaz’s megawatt attraction – her distinctively sunny grin – fail to penetrate the armor of a pitiless teenager.
When the couple’s previous boss (Kyle Chandler) resurfaces searching for a long-lost McGuffin (a type of all-purpose digital keys that may unlock something on the grid, and so forth), pursued by a bunch of nefarious henchmen, the household should go on the run. This prompts Gordon and co-writer Brendan O’Brien to engineer a complete lot of clumsily directed chases and fights, the latter repeatedly scored with musty pop hits as some form of jokeless working gag. Like different streaming spy films, Again in Motion aspires to Bondian globe-trotting, and winds up with a meager vary of green-screen-friendly areas: Atlanta suburbs, a petroleum station at evening, and a generic mansion to call three. The climax does hit up the Tate Fashionable in London, however solely briefly.
Early on, in moments the place violent self-defense appears to unlock one thing Emily and Matt suppressed throughout parenthood, Again in Motion appears poised to unpack the concept having fun with this sort of work entails a level of sociopathy. However Gordon and co-writer Brendan O’Brien don’t appear considering something that thorny, and so their characters’ ass-kicking is shortly recategorized as purely righteous. The mayhem is so frictionless that it seems to go solely unnoticed. Infinite machine-gun rounds are fired by way of a suburban neighborhood in broad daylight. A automotive chase minutes later sends autos hovering by way of the air. Matt wields a fuel pump as a flamethrower in full view of a number of civilians, and no one ever bats an eye fixed or alerts the authorities.
Again in Motion isn’t going for naturalism, however the interchangeable areas and vacuum-sealed motion make the film really feel smaller with out leaving room for it to be funnier. The very best bits in its second half contain Nigel (Jamie Demetriou), a bumbling MI6 trainee who’s shacked up with Emily’s estranged ex-spy mom, performed by Glenn Shut. Nigel’s open-hearted enthusiasm has a daft originality that the remainder of the characters conspicuously lack as they study predictable classes about parent-child understanding. Removed from a window into an unique world of subterfuge and life-or-death stakes (or any analogues within the lives of Hollywood A-listers like Diaz and Foxx), the algorithmically generated plot factors and robotic sequel-seeding of Again in Motion wind up feeling like one other day on the company workplaces.
