#1 Cheap Mr. & Mrs. Smith (Full Screen Edition) Reviews
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MR. & MRS. SMITH is slick and loud and a bit empty and maybe even obnoxious, but since it features perhaps the most beautiful couple in the world, I tend to overlook the movie's excesses and transgressions. You just about have to, with films like this which run on sheer glamorous star power and make you cave with its oodles of sex appeal.
The movie starts off cute, borrowing a morsel from WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, that bit where married couples are being interviewed. Immediately we catch on that, after five or six years of gradually eroding togetherness, the Smiths' marriage has stagnated. John Smith is a professional engineer. Jane Smith troubleshoots iffy corporate computer servers. They know this about each other. But what each doesn't know is that the other is secretly an elite contract assassin. And their hidden worlds are about to collide.
Essentially MR. & MRS. SMITH is a screwball from the hitman's perspective and it's marked with such a heightened sense of fun and cool and style that I half anticipated cameos from Pitt's Ocean's Eleven cronies. It's more lighthearted than Prizzi's Honor and not as dark as The War of the Roses. The action pieces are super-charged and over-the-top; the undercover assassin elements are handled well. Is the movie as gritty as, say, the Bourne flicks? No, but it's obvious that this movie isn't going for that grittiness. It's half a dose of provocative marriage-on-the-rocks romance, and half John Woo-inspired bullets ballet.
- Jane Smith to her husband John: "Baby, you couldn't find the button with two hands and a map."
MR. & MRS. SMITH frames Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt at their banterful best, their caustic, suggestive exchanges perhaps giving us a whiff of what really went on behind the scenes on set (if you buy all those rumors). Jolie and Pitt are Hollywood royalty, and this film capitalizes on their star power and showcases their spectacular chemistry. And it's hard not to get the vapors, watching their sensual dance in Bogotá, Colombia or that home-wrecking domestic brawl they get into. This film isn't as good as True Lies but it's way sexier (and this is with mad respect to Jamie Lee Curtis's hotel room strip scene).
And sometimes the curse of being too beautiful kicks in. Pitt and Jolie are so gorgeous that we sometimes forget that these two have got very good acting skills. They're so natural and charismatic at playing these types of roles that one tends to dismiss the work that goes into the portrayal. These guys can act. Props, also, to the scoring. The droll, easy-breezy score is indispensable, transforming what would otherwise have been an unbearable study of a stifling marriage into something that comes across more as a series of comedic domestic squabbles.
But, yes, okay, it does feel at times as if the film is trying too hard. There's a bit of overkill.
But, dang, look at all the pretty.
This Unrated edition comes in two discs. Disc 1 has the feature presentation and Director Doug Liman's film commentary. Disc 2 has the following:
- "Confidential Files" features 12 deleted scenes - including Adam Brody's funny extraction scene and a pretty neat (but predictable) alternate ending - and the screenplay of yet another alternate ending, and almost four minutes of gag reel.
- "Domestic Violence: Shooting MR. & MRS. SMITH" - the 33-minute Behind-the-Scenes documentary (a worthwhile look, and I liked the break down footage of several scenes, including the two dance pieces).
- "Doug's Film School" - Director Doug Liman introduces seven segments: "Framing Device" tracks Adam Brody's providing narration as a framing device for the story (although the studio eventually decided not to go this route). "Mother & Father" is a series of deleted cutaway scenes featuring John and Jane's respective bosses (Jacqueline Bisset and Terrence Stamp, later replaced with Angela Bassett and Keith David). The lengthy "Snowy Ravine" segment features the previsualization and live shooting of the ravine sequence (where you can see Brad Pitt get in a firefight with a cartoon); the ravine sequence later became the desert sequence, the shooting of which is also included (plus the screenplays for both sequences). We see the animated storyboarding Liman used to prep for the "Hood Jump" sequence (where Jane runs over John with her car); screenplay included. "Underground Garage" presents an alternate take of the Smiths' "run or fight" conversation which, in the movie, took place under a sewer grate but in this bonus scene is set in an underground garage; screenplay included. "HomeMade" focuses on the alternate front-end sequence to the big firefight climax (taking place this time in the HomeMade depot center during business hours instead of KostMart at night); also included, two storyboard sequences and the screenplay. Finally, there are "Previsualizations" (rough conceptual animation) of seven scenes.
- and three photo galleries.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (Full Screen Edition) Overview
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie smolder in one of the most anticipated, sizzling action films ever made. After five (or six) years of vanilla-wedded bliss, ordinary suburbanites John and Jane Smith (Pitt and Jolie) are stuck in a rut the size of the Grand Canyon?until the truth comes out! Unbeknownst to each other, they are both coolly lethal, highly paid assassins working for rival organizations. And when they discover they're each other's next target, their secret lives collide in a spicy, explosive mix of wicked comedy, pent-up passion, nonstop action and high-tech weaponry that gives an all-new meaning to "Till death do us part!"
The unrated version is the chick flick version. - For my 5th Generation Chinese NYer Children - USA
The unrated version shows more scenes of their home life and more long slow shots of Angelina Jolie which really show how amazing looking she is. I didn't like the theatrical release version at all. It seemed like a rushed collection of action sequences and smarmy one-liners. I didn't receive the second disc that comes with the unrated set so I can't comment on it. If you want a slightly slower version and you really want to lock onto Angelina Jolie's face, then this version is the one for you.
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