The Spy Next Door is one of Jackie Chan’s latest Kung Fu master-meets-ordinary-nice-guy movies. The fact that Jackie Chan’s stunts are amazing is hardly up for debate; the quickness and precision of his moves, regardless of how many takes he needs, are typically the central focus of any his movies. The unfortunate part of The Spy Next Door is that the actual fighting he does is pretty sparse. So we’re left with a pretty bland story, one that focuses on his relationship with his girlfriend — who also is his next door neighbor — and her children, and how he is able to break down their tough, children exteriors to get on their good sides.
Jackie plays Bob Ho, a kind gentleman who lives the life of an international spy working for the CIA. This double life he leads is unbeknownst to his girlfriend Gillian, and before he pops the question, he plans to tuck that part of his life away for good. Things seem to be going well until Gillian has to leave home for a while, and puts Bob in charge of her three children, who think Bob’s a total dork. Crazy antics follow as Bob tries to manage the three kids while holding on to his sanity.
Meanwhile, some Russian terrorists are at work concocting a diabolical scheme involving destroying all the world’s supply of oil, save for Russia’s. Then they can sell their oil for meeeeeeeeellions!! I guess until it runs out. Then everyone would be screwed. It’s kind of a silly plan, but the Russian terrorists themselves are pretty silly. Children audiences will probably find all the cartoonish goofiness to be hilarious.
Unfortunately, the story couldn’t figure out what to focus on: Bob’s relationship with the children, Bob’s relationship with his girlfriend, (which is supposed to be quite strong, as he plans on marrying her, but we see them interact about three times before she leaves for the majority of the movie), Bob’s career plans, the Russian’s scheming, the Russian’s scheming to attack Bob, and much more. Too many subplots didn’t allow for things to get interesting, so it got boring.
There are some off-putting moments, too. Like how one of Gillian’s children feeds bacon to the pet pig. The eldest daughter makes a remark about how gross it is, and frankly, I agree. Is forced cannibalism on a pet really that funny? Then again we are talking about bacon; perhaps that’s the one meat that would bare an exception to the rule. Then there’s more awkwardness when an older boy begins hitting on the eldest daughter, who is 13 years old both in the movie and in real life. The age of the skeezy boy who hits on her is not revealed in the movie, but according to IMDb, the actor is 19. That’s like a college student hitting on a kid in middle school. Bob does try to ward off the boy, but couldn’t he have been more like 15 or 16? I was waiting for Chris Hansen to walk in and surprise the young man.
If you like Jackie Chan movies because of the fun action involved in most of them, go rent Drunken Master or Rumble in the Bronx; you won’t find much eye-popping Kung Fu fun in this one. Younger folks might enjoy the gags and physical comedy, though.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
There's a quick featurette dealing with Jackie and how he related to the actors on set, particularly the children. It's full of many interviews with the actors and their experiences doing stunts, etc. A blooper reel, which I was excited for at first, because in most Jackie Chan films, a lot of the fun is had seeing the different takes Jackie took to accomplish his many stunts. However, here it's mostly just the actors flubbing their lines. There's a roundtable interview between Katherine Boecher, who plays one of the Russian evil persons, and the three child actors. It's mostly about how they got into the biz. However it takes an uncomfortable turn when the youngest of the three, Alina Foley, who was probably 6 years old when this came out, talks about how she wanted to become an actor when her mom told her she wanted to be an actor. Uhhh....awkward.
"The Spy Next Door" is on sale May 18, 2010 and is rated PG. Children & Family, Comedy. Directed by Brian Levant. Written by Jonathan Bernstein, James Greer, Gregory Poirier. Starring Amber Valletta, Billy Ray Cyrus, George Lopez, Jackie Chan, Madeline Carroll, Alina Foley, Will Shadley.
