Mr. & Mrs. Smith

Grade: C+

Brad Pitt, meet Angelina Jolie. Angelina, Brad. Oh, you two have met already? Huh, there are even rumors you um, know each other biblically?

You'd never know it from the utter lack of chemistry the two of you share on screen.

A couple find their lives together tedious, cold, repetitive, down in the doldrums -not unlike how we feel watching them. They seek marriage counseling, where they trade risqué and nasty quips, downplaying their lack of a sex life. (Honey, if these two ain't having a whole lot o' sex, there truly isn't a whole lot o' hope for the rest of us.) Secretly, they are hitman and hitwoman, respectively - she hides weaponry in the oven and he looks studly smoldering. They suddenly find themselves contracted to take each other out - hitperson-wise, not date-wise - and find sex and romance anew while beating the crap out of each other. There's a lot of sexual innuendo and pithy "I want to kill you and make you all bloody, honey" dialogue. Brad says something bitter, Angelina says something bitchy, and they kiss really really dispassionately hard. There's also a lot of shoot-em-up, knife wielding, bomb exploding, jujitsu, car crashing action, slickly directed but generally as ho hum and derivative as the latest James Bond incarnation.

Pitt and Jolie act (such as it is) at each other rather than with each other, and the entire film has a distant, processed feel as though they were never really in the same room together. The "ain't marriage grandly awful" knife twisting has its momentary amusements, but the film feels generally disjointed and unconvincing. The "Lion in Winter" this is not. Character development is non-existent, as we are meant to be interested in Brad and Angelina for no other reason than they are Brad and Angelina. Vince Vaughn phones in an irritating performance as Pitt's cohort who runs a spy operation but still lives with his Mommy, and Adam Brody (of "The O.C." fame) is eminently miscast as the hitee who sets the action in motion (did I mention Director Doug Liman also happens to be Executive Producer of "The O.C."? Hmmmmm.)

The theater air conditioning was just fine for a sweltering summer day. The film itself was dull and uninvolving, but sometimes coolness is enough - airwise I mean. And no, Brad never takes his shirt off. In an action/animal lust picture no less. Talk about not really getting your money's worth.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0356910/