Movie Review of ‘This Means War’

Once in a great while, there is a romantic comedy that is deep, thought provoking, and touching. Just be aware that ‘This Means War’ is not one of those. If you are looking for action scenes, humor, and sexy British accents, however, this movie has your name written all over it.

THE GOOD: The opening scene of this movie is a great attention getter, with Chris Pine (FDR) and Tom Hardy (Tuck) playing CIA agents who smoothly waltz into a party that looks like it was hosted by Ashton Kutcher, flirt with a few women, and then begin shooting bad guys. We soon learn that they have awakened the wrath of Heinrich-German supervillan (played by Til Schweiger) and that becomes the secondary plot of the film. However, the main entertainment value lies in the fact that FDR and Tuck have both fallen for the same woman: Lauren (portrayed by the adorable Reese Witherspoon). Being the best buddies that they are, they agree to play by a set of gentlemanly rules and let Lauren decide which one of them she prefers…but we all know men are simply not that mature, and so it comes as absolutely no surprise that the two of them use every undercover tactic possible to sabotage the other’s plans to woo fair lady. It was genuinely funny and frankly, I don’t laugh easily. You have to earn it from me and they certainly did. Reese is her usual delightfully cute person, and you can certainly see why she has trouble deciding which of these two charmers to choose. Personally, when there are British accents involved, it’s a no brainer for me….always go with the British guy. Tom Hardy could be a dead ringer for the elephant man, and I would still swoon over that voice and listening to him pronounce the word “privacy”. PRIV-ah-cee. Sigh.

THE BAD: Although I am aware that this movie is not getting a lot of praise from reviewers in general, it seems to me that the fault lies in people’s assumptions that all movies should be Oscar worthy, life changing moments in time. No, this movie will not likely win any awards, and I won’t go so far as to say it changed my life. But it made me laugh, several times in the space of 90 minutes, and I was entertained, which is the whole point of going to the movies in the first place. Sometimes that’s perfectly good enough. Throw in some buttered popcorn and a diet coke and I’m happy. If I can point to anything in this film that was less than desirable, it would be the fact that, for being rated PG-13, the sex scenes seemed —highly charged. Speaking as a mother of two teenagers, with a third not far behind, I would SO not be okay with them watching a kitchen counter being utilized in that way—-call me a prude if you must, but it’s my review so I call it as I see it.

THE UGLY: Peppered throughout the movie, Lauren’s friend Trish (played by Chelsea Handler) is there to give all sorts of raunchy, unladylike advice. It’s basically a trainwreck, and adds one more dimension to the argument that this movie is definitely not for young teenagers. I read somewhere that they actually had to remove several of Trish’s lines just to keep the movie from being rated R. Her words of wisdom add nothing to the storyline except to give you the impression that she is skanky. She did have one redeeming line consisting of “Don’t go for the better guy—go for the guy who makes YOU better.” If only all her lines had been that appealing.

This movie has a “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” feel to it-not surprising, since it’s from the same writer—so if you enjoyed that one, this will probably be a hit to you as well. Not quite as smart and fast paced, but then again, Brad Pitt doesn’t have a British accent, so it’s kind of a tie.