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Movie Buff: The Spy Next Door

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"The Spy Next Door" stars Jackie Chan as Bob Ho, an undercover CIA superspy who decides to give up his career in espionage to settle down with his next-door neighbour and girlfriend, Gillian (Amber Valletta). But Bob has one more mission to complete before Gillian agrees to marry him: winning over her three opinionated kids. When Gillian suddenly has to leave town, Bob volunteers to babysit the children so he can earn their approval. But 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, forcing Bob to juggle the roles of spy and prospective stepfather in the most challenging mission of his career.



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Movie Review


The movie starts off with a nice montage of Jackie Chan's past movies, both Hong Kong and Hollywood, portraying his breathtaking stunt works, played to the theme of "Secret Agent Man". The story and comedy is very family-friendly, not offering much for those who aren't watching this with children, unless they themselves are pre-pubescent. However, audiences should be thrilled and "aw-ed" by the peachy and wittier-than-usual four year old Nora, which is probably the best pairing for Jackie in this movie.


Speaking of pairing, Magnus Scheving does a splendid job of matching the acrobatic stunts of Jackie Chan, which isn't actually very surprising, as he is a famous Icelandic athlete specialising in aerobic gymnastics. The Jackie-Magnus combo gives a fresh, new and "remixed" feel to the typical Hollywood acrobatic stunts and the battle of Bob and Poldark is fairly eye-catching with jumps, spins and rolls all orchestrated in symphony.



However, the rest of the kungfu action is typical Jackie Chan as he fights the bad guys using everyday household items such as pots, pans and plates. The portrayal of the villains is done distastefully in Hollywood-endorsed stereotypical Russian, with the heavy accents and the simple-minded muscular henchmen.



In summary, this is a movie where the good guys AND bad guys are "nice", mixed in with a couple of cornball and goofy jokes. Clearly a family oriented movie meant only for children, and adults with a lot of tolerance and patience.
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