Review: Back in Action
Streaming platforms love action comedies about secret spies or retired agents, but most are just average at best. Back in Action stands out only for marking Cameron Diaz’s return after nearly a decade, yet it’s another bland Netflix addition.
Diaz and Jamie Foxx play CIA operatives, Emily and Matt. During their last mission, the pair escape from a plane full of enemy agents and decide to use the fact that the world probably thinks they are dead to retire and start a family since Emily is pregnant. Fifteen years later, their past catches up to them, and they are forced to take their two kids on the run to try and recover a valuable cyberweapon and use it to try and barter for immunity and protection from the CIA. There’s nothing you haven’t seen before and nothing that will surprise you regarding the plot of Back in Action; it’s as formulaic as you can get. The only thing that keeps it from being a tedious slog is Diaz and Foxx, who have a breezy, easy back and forth from years of real-life friendship, similar to the dynamic between Mark Wahlberg and Halle Berry that fueled the mildly entertaining The Union from last year.
Along with Diaz and Foxx, Glenn Close and Jamie Demetriou are highlights as Emily’s frosty mother, Ginny, and Demetriou as Ginny’s doofus beau who has aspirations of being an MI6 operative but is hilariously ill-equipped and horrified by all that entails. Kyle Chandler is pretty much wasted as Emily and Matt’s former CIA handler, and the usually great Andrew Scott is so dry and British that it feels like he’s rightfully bored with what’s happening. He’s given a running, one-note joke about being in love with Emily and ignoring Matt. McKenna Roberts and Rylan Jackson, as Emily and Matt’s kids Alice and Leo, are okay with a few funny reactions to the craziness they find themselves in, but they both get rote subplots where Alice has been rebelling against Emily and Leo is too concerned and scared of the real world outside of his video games.
The action part of Back in Action is also pretty bland and uninteresting, with nothing fun or exciting about the choreography or car chases/shootouts. Director Seth Gordon usually deals with more straight-up comedy, like Horrible Bosses, than movies with big action set pieces. One strange aspect that doesn’t add anything is that almost every action sequence is set to an old jazz standard, so Foxx and Diaz fight thugs while “At Last” by Etta James plays, for example. The pair aren’t shown to have a particular affinity for those classic songs and lean more toward 90s music like Salt n Pepa, which they sing in a tired but somewhat amusing scene where they embarrass their kids while on the run.
It’s great to see Cameron Diaz back on the screen, and she and Foxx have an easy, fun dynamic, but everything else about Back in Action is mediocre and uninspired. The comedy and action are formulaic, and you’ve seen this movie a dozen or so times before, and it’s probably on Netflix. Hopefully, now that she’s back, Diaz will get to do some more exciting and interesting movies in the future