Another action star does a kid's movie. You can read my review after the jump.
The Package: Nothing too impressive here. The cover art is bland. The discs, one blu-ray, one dvd are housed in a standard blu-ray amray, with the discs resting on both sides of the case.
The Picture: Framed at 1.78:1 and in 1080p, this transfer is not all that it should be. There is a fair amount of grain throughout the movie and the colors are consistent. The movie lacks sharpness though. In the close-ups detail is fine, but the remaining shots lack detail. Overall, this is a decent transfer.
The Sound: We are given an English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio option as the lossless option. With any Jackie Chan movie we expect the surrounds to get a workout when there is action of screen, and that is exactly what happens here. Other than the action scenes, most of the audio is directed towards the front.
The Goodies: Lionsgate has provided us with very standard special features.
-Jackie Chan: Stunt Master and Mentor (10:14) This is basically a suck up fest to Jackie Chan. No real stories are told, just the filmmakers and actors talking about how much they love Jackie Chan
-Adventures in Acting with the kids of The Spy Next Door (11:09) This is a round table-type discussion with the main kids who are in the movie. They discuss what it was like working on the film and with Jackie Chan
-Blooper Reel (03:16) Most blooper reels are not funny and this one keeps that tradition. There is nothing out of the ordinary here, just flubbed lines.
Trailers: We do not get the trailer for The Spy Next Door. We just get trailers for movie that are two years old: Forbidden Kingdom and Next Avengers
The Film: The Spy Next Door is another in a long line of "Action star in a kids movie" type movie. But while movies like The Pacifier and The Game Plan rose above the material, The Spy Next Door doesn't.
Jackie Chan is good in the movie, but the kids are really annoying. This comes as a bit of a shock to me because the kids in the other movies I mentioned are not nearly as annoying as the kids here.
It's amazing that Chan can go from Rob-B-Hood, another movie where he stars alongside a baby to this. The former is a really good movie, while this one is just bad. Chan does come away from this movie still intact, doing what he can with an awful script.
The Spy Next Door should entertain kids under the age of ten, but adults should steer clear of this movie. There is not one laugh to be had and the fight scenes are boring.
The Scores:
The Picture ***
The Sound ***
The Goodies **
The Film *
Overall Score **1/2 (not an average)
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