Tonight's Movie: This Means War (2012)
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Pine and Hardy play a pair of secret agents who, unbeknownst to each other, have each fallen hard for Witherspoon. She has no clue the two men know each other, and she particularly doesn't know that the men are putting all the tricks of their profession to use as they woo her while simultaneously trying to sabotage the competition. Meanwhile a dastardly criminal (Til Schweiger) bent on revenge is searching for the agents.
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The film is total escapist fare, in the mode of films such as MR. AND MRS. SMITH (2005), DUPLICITY (2009), KNIGHT AND DAY (2010), and THE TOURIST (2010). Like those films, THIS MEANS WAR is a humorous romantic fantasy with impossibly attractive leads and nondisturbing make-believe violence. Viewers who have fun watching that type of movie may enjoy THIS MEANS WAR as much as I did.
It's perhaps worth noting that if this film were real life, Pine and Hardy would be creepy stalkers or voyeurs, but since this movie has no basis in reality, in the context of the film it's just fun.
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Parental advisory: This film was originally rated R due to Chelsea Handler's tasteless "jokes." A little of her goes a very long way. Thankfully the film was edited down so that it qualified for a PG-13. It's as close to R as a PG-13 can get, and I personally don't recommend it for the under-16 crowd.
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Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times seemed to enjoy the movie fairly well, and Leonard Maltin writes "How well you like the end result...will depend on how much you like the stars — and how hungry you are for escapist entertainment." I like the actors quite a lot, especially Tom Hardy, and I found this film a highly enjoyable Saturday matinee diversion.
The trailer can be seen at First Showing or the movie's official site.
1 Comments:
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