Movie Review: The Spy Next Door

The Spy Next Door

Rated PG for sequences of action violence
and some mild rude humor.
Running Time: 1 hour 32 minutes

The Spy Next Door stars Jackie Chan as Bob Ho, an undercover CIA superspy who decides to give up his career in espionage and settle down with his next door neighbor and girlfriend. But, Bob has just one more mission to complete before Gillian agrees to marry him – he must win over her three opinionated kids.

When Gillian has to leave town, Bob volunteers to babysit the children so he can earn their approval. When one of the kids mistakenly downloads a top-secret formula from his computer, Bob’s archenemy, a Russian terrorist, moves in for the attack.

Suddenly Bob finds himself juggling the roles of spy and prospective stepfather in the most challenging mission of his career.

It’s Been Done Before – But Still Fun

While he’s no Vin Diesel or Sean Connery, Jackie Chan’s latest movie, The Spy Next Door, has the feel of Diesel’s 2005 flick The Pacifier and pretty much any James Bond movie. But, even after saying that, this is still a cute and fun movie for the target audience. Yes, I must admit we did laugh throughout the movie too, but we simply enjoy these types of movies. With a family-friendly target audience rating of PG, The Spy Next Door hits that target with pretty much bulls eye precision.

While this may seem a tired story line and theme to some, for the target audience, it’s brand new. But, aside from it’s somewhat predictable nature, there’s enough going on here for not only kids to enjoy, but parents will enjoy it too. For adults who grew up with the toys of the original James Bond era, it’s great fun to see all the toys and spy gadgets in Bob Ho’s arsenal as he tries to capture the bad guy. When you add in the obvious play on name game between Bob Ho and Don Ho, you just can’t help but laugh.

The Actors

As for Jackie Chan, he’s simply a funny guy in this type of roll. It’s worth noting since he’s not with the rude and crude Chris Rock of his Rush Hour days, the humor in The Spy Next Door is simply a lot of clean fun. Yes there’s a lot of physical humor in this movie. Lots of fight scenes and lots of jumping. But, we also applaud those involved with The Spy Next Door for not stooping to a lot of groin hits just to get a laugh. Actually, I can’t remember any of the usual groin hits that writers like to drop into such a movie just for a quick laugh.

When it comes to the supporting characters, George Lopez needs to go back to his late night comedy show. An actor he is not. He’s simply out of his environment when on the big screen. Billy Ray Cyrus puts in an admirable performance as a Secret Agent. While it’s pretty much a bit part, it’s nice to see Cyrus in a different role than his usual “father of Hannah Montana gig”.

Overall, The Spy Next Door is simply a fun family-friendly movie. While it’s not a leap off the screen type movie, it is worth watching as a family. Aside from the laugh moments, there’s also a great message about what it means to be a family too.

Enjoy the show!
Dr. Rus