The Spy Next Door

A campy Jackie Chan comedy reminiscent of the Vin Disel babysitting flick, in which a secret agent agrees to babysit for his neighbor/girlfriend's kids. Naturally no one knows he's a secret agent and naturally the kids are difficult, particularily the 13 year old eldest daughter. Yes the script needed some work, yes there were missed opportunities (a pig for a house pet and the eldest is into gymnastics, both I expected to be used andthey weren't), but it was still lots of campy fun. The most over the top Russin accents since Boris and Natasia but I suspect that was done on purpose. The quality of the acting varied quite widely; Jackie Chan was taking it very seriously, the kids were good (the eldest in particular), but the villains were all acting like cheap cartoon characters.

The movie opened with a clip show of different scenes of our main spy, Bob Ho (Jackie Chan) in various past spy type situations, all of which are taken from Chan's past films (The Tuxedo ad the Rush Hour movies for the most part), while "Secret Agent Man" plays (though I couldn't help but think they should have been singing "Secret Asian Man"). After that lots of setup, though it's kept moving with Chan's antics, and some recurring sight-gags involving a villain with wardrobe problems. Once the main actions hits, it is, as usual, Jackie Chan's show. Predictable atevery turn, far from perfect, but still an enjoyable little comedy made with an obvous attempt at camp.