Back in Action Review: Another run-of-the-mill streaming flick

Cameron Diaz makes a welcome comeback opposite Jamie Foxx, but this is pretty familiar stuff designed to be watched in the background.

PLOT: Two married former CIA spies (Cameron Diaz and Jamie Foxx) are pulled back into espionage when their former identities are exposed. 

REVIEW: There are two genres all of the streamers seem to be obsessed with: spy capers and heist movies. The super spy genre is an especially attractive one, as the plots can be thin, and old formulas can be recycled over and over again. As long as your stars are likeable and you have a decent director at the helm, spy flicks do their job as mindless entertainment. However, it’s worth noting that none of them have ever successfully launched a franchise, with most viewing movies like The Grey Man, The Mother, Heart of Stone or Ghosted as mediocre one-offs.

Back in Action has a storyline that’s awfully close to that of another streaming spy flick from just a few months ago, The Family Plan, with Mark Wahlberg. In this one, you get a Mr. And Mrs. Smith-style couple, Matt (Jamie Foxx) and Emily (Cameron Diaz), who narrowly survive their last mission and opt to retire once they discover they’re going to have a baby. Fifteen years later, they’re suburban parents with two kids (McKenna Roberts & Rylan Jackson) who think they are boring. What do you want to bet their identities are going to be exposed, and the whole family will have to plunge – as the title promises – Back in Action?

Indeed, there’s nothing here you haven’t seen a million times before, with the movie totally coasting on the chemistry of its two stars. The most appealing thing about Back in Action is that it finally lured Cameron Diaz back to the screen for the first time in eleven years. She looks great, and she’s cast exactly to type with the movie, not only having loads in common with her two Charlie’s Angels films but also her Tom Cruise team-up Knight and Day. 

On a grimmer note, this is also the last movie Jamie Foxx made before the medical crisis that almost killed him. You can see how his condition, which he documented in the candid Netflix special What Had Happened Was, ended up being a total surprise, as he looks terrific. While director Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses) is not known for action, the film is jam-packed with fisticuffs and chases, making it seem like the streamer pumped a pretty penny into it.

Yet, like a lot of their other would-be blockbusters, Back in Action is forgettable and little more than a movie to throw on in the background while you work or scroll on your phone. What’s worse is that given Netflix’s love of second-screen content, that may actually be how it was designed, with a simple plot that’s easy to follow – to the point that you could join the film 10-20 or 30 minutes in without missing much. You can also duck out for huge chunks and still be able to follow it, which is a disturbing streaming trend, in terms of how disposable their content feels at times.

The action scenes, of which there are a lot, are well-done, but to keep things light and frothy, they’re always scored by too obvious needle drops you’ve heard in too many other rom-coms. It’s the same rinse-and-repeat style of filming which made Red Notice such a chore to sit through and marred the recent Carry On (although those films are so popular, one can’t blame Netflix for adhering to the formula).  

Other than the two leads, Netflix was able to attract a top-shelf supporting cast, although many are wasted. Andrew Scott, among the more gifted actors of his generation, is wasted as an MI6 agent with the hots for Emily, while Kyle Chandler’s role as their CIA handler is predictable and a waste of his talent. At least Glenn Close gets to camp it up a bit, affecting an English accent to play Emily’s former spy mom, who’s got a much younger boyfriend (Jamie Demetriou) who’s a wannabe spy out of Johnny English. 

The fact is, if you want to see a romantic comedy involving spies, you can do so much better. In a world where True Lies and Mr and Mrs Smith exist (both the film and TV versions), Back in Action is all too familiar. It’s the kind of movie can you throw on in the background, not pay too much attention to and perhaps walk away slightly amused by – but not more than that. Then again, I suppose that’s exactly what Netflix wanted.