You’ve heard the term best of friends but “best of enemies” would be more appropriate for the relationship at the centre of This Means War, the utterly superficial new romantic action film from Charlie’s Angels and Terminator Salvation director McG.
It stars the highly in-demand Tom Hardy (who will be seen this summer as the villainious Bane in The Dark Knight Rises) and Chris Pine (Captain Kirk in the newest Star Trek incarnation), a couple of secret agents and friends who one day discover they are dating the same girl (played by Reese Witherspoon). They both decide to keep dating her at the same time to see who she chooses. They make up and follow a set of rules, or at least that’s the plan. Before you know it the two are using all manner of tricks their super agent jobs provide to try and sabotage the other’s relationship.
It’s not exactly an original concept but tries to set itself apart from other similar movies by throwing spy action into the mix. And while that might make it somewhat unique it does also make it difficult to buy into the whole thing. The situation is just too over-the-top, dumb from the get-go and never really convincing with either of its relationships involving Witherspoon’s unsuspecting Lauren, a girl that could only exist in the movies and whose biggest problem is that she can’t decide which of the two mean she’s dating is the one for her. It’s hard to even care, frankly, much less actually become invested in it.
McG is a director not exactly known for subtlety or dense film-making – after all he did make the vacuous Charlie’s Angels movies – but This Means War is the epitome of the admittedly slick but ultimately superficial movies he tends to make. The action sequences are actually a lot less frequent than you might think but when they do come along they’re flat, boring and don’t get seem to fit well with the rest of the movie. It doesn’t seem like the director knows if he’s making a romantic comedy with action or an action movie with romance, and so it stumbles from one to the other rather clunkily and aimlessly.
The three leads are all look great, of course they do. Pine is his usual charming self and suits the film he’s in more than Hardy who feels totally miscast. His antagonist relationship with Pine feels entirely contrived, you never really feel like the two of them are friends or believe in their dispute. And Witherspoon’s lack of chemistry with both of them only adds to the lack of investment in her predicament. This would be forgivable if the romance angle wasn’t so infused into the rest of the film.
Flashy but hideously hollow, This Means War is a slick-looking romantic action flick that isn’t particularly engaging or exciting, with three unconvincing leads at the centre of a plot that doesn’t add up to much and isn’t pulled off well enough to stand as “fun for what it is.” It’s eye-candy without a lick of substance – sometimes that’s all you need, but unfortunately this isn’t one of those times.
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This review was published in Glasgow In the City magazine.