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‘Back in Action’ Movie Review: A Starry Spy Comedy That’s Such A Nothingburger You Can Fold Laundry To It

Photo from Netflix

From Jeremy Kibler

Red Notice. Ghosted. The Family Plan. Role Play. The Union. These are the kinds of star-studded, blandly titled action-comedies about spies or assassins that streamers seem to think are just good enough to make, so we keep getting them. Based on the phoned-in and instantly forgettable Back in Action, they’re just getting more creatively bankrupt and worse. While Cameron Diaz pulled herself out of retirement to star alongside Jamie Foxx in a Netflix product, this is lazy, algorithm-designed background content at best, wasting the talents of two reliable A-listers hired to carry a big-budget dud.

Diaz and Foxx play CIA cover operatives Emily and Matt, and the secret is out to their superior that they’re together and pregnant. When they decide to go off the grid and start over after one last mission, they live a far less dangerous life and start a family. 15 years later, having raised 14-year-old daughter Alice (McKenna Roberts) and 12-year-old son Leo (Rylan Jackson), Emily and Matt’s biggest conflicts are now dealing with getting the kids to school on time and spending quality time with them. But then their cover is compromised when a Big Bad wants the cyberterrorist weapon (brilliantly) named “The Key” that Matt has long since hidden, and you know what Mom and Dad have to do. It’s like Jason Bourne without the amnesia (and the show-stopping, crisply edited action sequences).

There’s always potential in a setup that would seem stale, but director Seth Gordon (whose track record of making middling studio comedies at least boasts the first Horrible Bosses) really doesn’t find any clever, interesting spin on derivative material to make it pop or just be a fun, inconsequential popcorn picture. The one silver lining about Back in Action is that the script by Gordon and co-writer Brendan O’Brien (Neighbors) does not make Cameron Diaz’s Emily the spouse that’s left in the dark about her husband being a spy. Since both of them are/were spies and in this thing called Suburban Life together, the only ones being lied to are their children, but it’s to keep them safe!

Back in Action is an entertainment fraud, promising comedy and excitement as most action-comedies should but not actually delivering the goods. It looks like a slick action movie, filled with bodies moving, fisticuffs and whizzing bullets, but the rhythms are off. The action stunts are overly choreographed, choppily edited, and just generally perfunctory, detracting from any sort of thrill that we should be having.  It’s also such a tired choice to play Dean Martin/Frank Sinatra/Etta James songs—great songs, yes—over the allegedly brutal action, as if to be ironic.

As for any laughs, did the flat script actually have any sort of snappy banter to give its stars? Clearly not. There are two attempts to be a little darkly funny or edgy when Matt and Emily get their groove back, fighting off some would-be date rapists at a nightclub and then later causing a vehicle to fly in the air. Unfortunately, these are blips, as is an amusingly honest throwaway line about still listening to Michael Jackson’s music. 

Diaz and Foxx are easy to watch, but they have zero chemistry with each other. As sexy, magnetic and charismatic as they can be individually, they aren’t miracle workers, only being able to do so much with what’s been written on the page. It was always going to be a delight to see Diaz back on screen since 2014 in Annie (Foxx was, of course, the Daddy Warbucks figure to her Miss Hannigan), but this lifeless role leaves one wanting. The supporting cast also includes the incredibly overqualified Andrew Scott, Kyle Chandler, and Glenn Close, who gets to keep her Cruella De Vil accent as Emily’s estranged British mum Ginny. Jamie Demetriou is kind of a hoot as Ginny’s younger boyfriend, an MI6 trainee, but his character shtick wears thin pretty quickly anyway. 

It might be a passable way to spend your time while folding laundry, but watching the disposable Back in Action is like staring at a blank wall for two hours, waiting to feel something or at least be surprised. Unless the quality can get turned around, the hint at a Back in Action 2 feels like a cynical threat. 

Rating: 1.5/5 

Back in Action is available to stream on Netflix on January 17, 2025.

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