This Means War

Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Chris Pine, Tom Hardy, Chelsea Handler
Directed by: McG
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Action, Comedy, Romance
2012

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Two CIA agents (Chris Pine, Tom Hardy) discover they are both dating the same woman (Reese Witherspoon). This tests their friendship as they competition to win her heart quickly spirals out of control.

Review:

Tim: I suppose I really like the basic premise of this movie. It takes your typical love triangle but includes an interesting twist- the two men are best friends, CIA agents, and are deadly assassins. This immediately creates some interesting scenarios and allows the movie to mine themes of romance, action, and drama. This should have been an original, fresh film. Unfortunately, McG just doesn't do a very good job directing the film and far too much is left unrealized. This is an okay movie, but it could have been better.

Surprisingly, one of the biggest issues I had with the film involved the action scenes. The romantic scenes play quite well, and it's truly entertaining to watch the Reese Witherspoon-Chris Pine-Tom Hardy love triangle. Unfortunately, the action all felt cheap and poorly presented, which is odd because McG has some experience in this department. I felt like the budget limited the action scenes. They felt rushed and on a far too small scale. I'm not suggesting we needed Mission: Impossible or Bourne-style action sequences, but the ones here felt rushed and predictable. That hurt the movie because there was a clear unbalance between the action scenes and the romantic ones. Here is a quick example- the big action finale on the bridge was surprisingly small scale and over far too quickly. That hurts the movie. I would have liked to see a romantic action movie that at least attempted to raise the stakes with the action sequences. In this film, they felt like an after-thought.

The cast is pretty good. Reese Witherspoon has made far too many romantic movies, but that's definitely her wheelhouse, and you can't criticize her too much for playing to her strengths. This isn't one of her more memorable roles, but she does a good job and at least gets the audience somewhat interested in her character. I normally like Chris Pine quite a bit, but I didn't love him here. I felt like his character was too forced. I never really believed him a cool, calculating spy. His character simply wasn't believable to me, and his quasi-jerk streak turned me off to him. Similarly, I like Tom Hardy, but I thought he was only decent here. He certainly gives a better performance than Pine, and I believed his character much more. Unfortunately, his storyline is just a bit too predictable. One of my biggest complaints with the film is that I never believed Pine and Hardy were best friends. They just didn't show enough chemistry on screen. They occasionally felt like stranger- their interactions were often forced and uncomfortable. They simply weren't believable as these very close friends.

This Means War isn't a terrible movie. There are some fun moments and the film manages to at least partially hold our attention throughout. The cast might not have the best characters, but they do good work with what they have. While I didn't like this movie too much, I don't want to seem too harsh on it, either. This is just another one of those average movies that isn't bad enough to cause us pain, but doesn't do enough to convince us it's any good, either. This was certainly a worthwhile try, but the movie falls short.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 6



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Unstoppable, Killers, Water for Elephants, One for the Money