Dawn of the Geeks

Considering I’m trying to get rid of the dating site ads, this is probably not the best movie to restart my reviews with. I started a movie review section last year but it went stale in August since it was such a hassle to update. Now, with a blog, it’s easy so I’ll probably review about as many movies as I see. Which is a lot.

The basic plot summary is John (Brad Pitt) and Jane (Angelina Jolie) meet in Columbia and get married. What they don’t know is that the other is a spy. 5 or 6 years later they’re in marriage counseling and they both get sent to do the same job. That’s when they figure out they’re on opposing teams. Hilarity and drama ensues as they try (or not) to kill each other. Moulin Rouge did a much better job with the “does she love him or not” bit. The other standard fare is the huge gun fight, elevator music bit which has been done in a number of movies already including last year’s Dawn of the Dead. The first time I saw it was for some video game years ago. It was funny then, it’s losing the funny now.

This is definitely not an original movie. What it has going for it is Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. But, since it’s rated PG-13 you’re only getting to see as much as Maxim Magazine would show. It also has the same problem as Ocean’s Twelve: it’s not about the story. It’s about the actors. They along with Vince Vaughn and one other surprise actor (unless you looked it up on IMDB) make up basically the entire cast. Everyone else is pretty much faceless. The goal of the movie is to show how cool Brad Pitt is and how hot Angelina Jolie is. They even have a pretty blatent ad for another one of his movies (Fight Club) in this movie.

Fight Club was a character study and a very interesting one at that. It wasn’t about Brad Pitt. It was about characters and how they interact. You know. The story. I have to say that Mr. and Mrs. Smith was entertaining. You just have to not ask too many questions. Hopefully Pitt with get off his self interested horse and start making some more story focused movies like Seven, Fight Club and Snatch. Angelina’s a hottie but I don’t think she or anyone else is currently taking herself seriously enough to do a deeper movie that isn’t just concerned with showing how hot she is. Maybe that’s all people want from her.