ViewGuide

Created Nov 13, 2009 05:26PM PST • Edited Aug 01, 2023 08:45PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Really Great 4.5

   Moviestar movies get no better than this one. Super hot, totally cold and dead-bang funny, this huge hit could have been overwhelmed by the fusion of its soon-to-be-coupled stars. Instead Brangelina’s debut perfectly serves the power-couple satire, even more so in hindsight given how their real-life relationship has prospered. Credit Simon Kinberg’s perfect script for harnessing such big guns to unerringly great effect.

   The movie deftly satires today’s marriages of equals, especially those where both spouses are high powered strivers unwilling to settle for less than perfection in any aspect of life, including marriage. Mr. & Mrs. Smith resembles a tongue-in-cheek updating of the Westchester life of Mr. & Mrs. Draper, notwithstanding that the retro Mad Men came later.

   Perhaps they can make a sequel on Brangelina’s tenth anniversary…

4. Acting

   Really Great 4.5

   Brangelina are each adept at playing droll and beautiful, making this a perfect joint-tenancy vehicle for them. Their palpable on-screen chemistry infamously kindled off, making this Hollywood history of a sort.

   Mrs. Angie has long since proven herself an extraordinary femme fatale, here mixing that velvety killer instinct with suburban domesticity to hilarious effect.

   Mr. Brad has long since proven himself the quintessential easy-going stud, here mixing that studmuffinhood with perfectly delivered tongue-in-cheek comedy. Inglorious Basterds led me to compare him to Paul Newman. Here he’s a post-modern, post-Wild Bunch Cary Grant, if you catch my suave, ultra-violent drift.

   Vince Vaughn plays one of his patented overgrown juveniles in brief and therefore effective fashion.

   No other individual stands out, though Angie’s ultrababe posse demands attention: Kerry Washington, Stephanie March (better known as A.D.A. Alexandra Cabot from Law & Order:SVU), Jennifer Morrison, Theresa Barrera, Perrey Reeves (a famous screen Mrs. herself: Mrs. Ari Gold) and Melanie Tolbert. Talk about a queen and her court!

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Perfect 5.0

7. Female Costars Good 3.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Really Great 4.5

    Consistently droll, with several LOL moments, the film perhaps suffers from being over-long at two full hours, but it never drags or lacks ideas. An example of the latter: It fetishizes weapons just as strivers fetishize multiple showerheads and stainless steel appliances.

11. Direction Great 4.0

12. Play Perfect 5.0

    Spot-on satire of contemporary relationship language through the courting, honeymoon, unspoken frustration, broken dream, and out & out marital battle phases.

13. Music Great 4.0

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0

    The upscale perfection look of the film matches the characters, from the huge suburban house complete with all the trimmings, to the retail shoot-out, to the sleek spy headquarters.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.3

    Seems like it should be R instead of the PG-13 it received. Between Angie’s dominatrix assassin scene and the house destroying make-up sex that she and Brad have, it goes beyond titillating into mild eroticism.

    Then there is the copious violence, mostly of the comik variety (i.e., almost no blood or guts shown), but still the body count gets pretty high.

17. Sex Erotic 2.7

18. Violence Fierce 2.0

19. Rudeness Salty 2.3

21. Reality

    Surreal 2.4

    How surreal?

    Almost 200 FX specialists plus almost 150 stunt players yields two and a half times normal reality. Almost.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.6

23. Biological Surreal 3.0

24. Physical Glib 1.6