Released Jan. 17 on Netflix, “Back in Action” is a movie offering both unrealistic action-packed scenes and cringe-worthy humor. While this movie looked like it had potential, it was mostly a flop. Directed by Seth Gordon, this movie has many doppelgangers that I would rank higher.
“Back in Action” follows Matt Reynolds (Jamie Foxx) and Emily Reynolds (Cameron Diaz), two former CIA spies who are forced to go back to their previous lives when their identity is leaked. They must retrieve a key from England that they had stolen 15 years earlier and ensure that it does not end up in the wrong hands. Along the way we watch the Reynolds family, along with their two kids Alice (McKenna Roberts) and Leo (Ryland Jackson), become closer as their adventure takes them along many different paths.
The soundtrack of the movie was very interesting and something that I was not expecting. The main time when I noticed the music was during all the fight scenes . It was definitely not my favorite, as it made the scenes seem even more unrealistic than they already were and seemed very unserious, which was not the overall feel of the movie. It was like listening to elevator music while watching people running around and fighting. While this may work in some movies and shows, I felt like it was not the right choice for this movie due to how urgent other parts of the movie felt.
Cameron Diaz and Jamie Foxx definitely fit their roles in this movie and pulled it together a little more. These two actors have acted together before in the movie “Annie,” released in 2014, and you can tell that they are very serious about the characters they play. It felt good knowing an actress in this movie. When I saw Diaz’s face in the first scene, I was excited to see how the rest of the movie would turn out. While it did overall disappoint me, it was still nice knowing the cast. Another actress who acted well in this movie was Glenn Close who played the grandmother, Ginny. She had several lines that made me laugh and her acting brought me in closer to the TV to see what would happen next.
The cinematography of “Back in Action” was satisfactory, with nice lighting and good camera movements in scenes like car chases or the plane ride. The cameras captured nice shots of the surroundings during the movie and there was good camera placement during the more chill scenes. Something that I would change is the camera movement and angles during the action-packed fight scenes. The camera would move to capture something a second too late, which made everything seem too unrealistic and awkward.
Another thing that I would change about the movie is the writing of the script. There were a few parts where I did feel emotional over the storyline, like the family in the movie getting closer, but the overall storyline made me lose interest due to how unnatural some of the other scenes were. The beginning of the movie starts off with something that happened in the past before skipping to 15 years after, and it all seemed too crazy and impractical. While I know this is just a fake action movie, it still seemed as though the writers could have made the movie seem a little more real. There were times a character would say or do something and I would just think, “Why would they add this?”
I thoroughly enjoyed the costumes in this movie because, while they were nothing special, they fit right in with all the scenes. You could tell that the costume designers put effort into making sure the characters had different outfits throughout the movie. For different scenes, the actors and actresses would be wearing something that made them fit in.
In general, this movie was something that I do not regret watching, but I would most likely not watch it again or recommend it to other people. There were certain aspects that I did enjoy throughout the movie, but there were more things that I disliked than I did like. I think that many things, such as the writing of the script, camera movements and unrealisticness of the movie, could have been changed to make it more enjoyable.
“Back in Action”: ★★★☆☆