How hard is it, as a foreigner, to learn English over many years of acting in English movies? Apparently very. While Jackie Chan is great for action and combat scenes, he still can’t string together a sentence with each word pronounced correctly. I would have expected a little more.
His latest Hollywood movie, The Spy Next Door, is a laugh. But not for the right reasons. I found myself laughing at a lot of things that are just totally unrealistic and seem a bit stupid. But I guess this film wasn’t intended for intelligent, discerning adults that expect a certain level of sophistication. It’s probably better suited as a family movie that parents watch with their kids. At that level it would probably not seem so… simple.
The first thing that irked me was the relationship between Bob (played by Jackie Chan) and Gillian (played by Amber Valletta). We don’t get any back story or anything to help us identify with their relationship. It’s just suddenly there. And I couldn’t feel it at all. It didn’t make any sense why two totally different people like that would fall in love. Not that it couldn’t happen, but with no background it’s harder to believe.
The bottom line is this: it’s more of a family movie (if your family includes kids), so just bare that in mind if you do decide to go watch it. If you approach it as such, you might enjoy it a lot more. :)
