Trailer Tracking: ‘Wanderlust,’ ‘Safe House,’ ‘This Means War,’ More

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Movie: “This Means War”

Best Parts of the Trailer: Tom Hardy and Chris Pine look like they have some legitimate chemistry; Wolfmother’s “Woman” is a great song choice and works well; it’s a pretty package; the final “why is she listening to that old man?” joke at Chelsea Handler’s expense

Worst Parts of the Trailer: The fact that it has to stand comparisons to “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” and “True Lies”; the premise seems very sitcom-y; and a nutshot… really?

Our Take: Is it wrong that we feel a bit bad for McG? Granted, he’s made some lousy movies, but the “This Means War” trailer doesn’t even toss in a “From the director of ‘Charlie’s Angels’” credit, relegating his name to the very last second of the preview. On one level, I get it. This is semi-new territory for McG – a very high concept action-romance that isn’t based on an existing franchise. A spy-vs.-spy comedy where two secret agents and former best pals (Chris Pine and Tom Hardy) use all the resources of the CIA to take each other down as they compete for the heart of the same girl (Reese Witherspoon). This is one of the first times that McG has been given the opportunity to create something new. (Even “We Are Marshall” was based on a true story, so there were only so many liberties he could take.) And, at least from this trailer, I get the sense that McG realizes that this is a big movie for him and you can almost feel him swinging for the fences.

Which is good. Ambition is good. And it’s almost necessary when you’re working on a movie that, on many levels, is going to remind people of past blockbusters like “True Lies” and “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”. And, it’s in those moments, the moments where it reminds us of those past mega-hits, where the “This Means War” trailer really shines. The slick, cool hitman vs. hitman stuff seems well choreographed and interesting, the cast seems to have some chemistry (it’s hard to top the Arnold/Jamie Lee and Brad/Angelina chemistry of the past, though), and the dueling dates scenes remind me of the Arnold/Bill Paxton scenes in “True Lies”, which were among the funniest parts of the movie. “This Means War” definitely makes for an attractive package.

However, there are a few fairly noticeable holes in this package that even the trailer can’t hide. The first is a big problem with the central premise – we have to care about all three of our leads, even though they’re all acting kind of like idiots. Fine, we can chalk the Pine vs. Hardy buffoonery up to damaged male egos, but Reese Witherspoon, on the other hand, has spent so much time cultivating this very sharp, very intelligent persona, both on and off-screen, that it’s almost too much of a stretch to buy her as an idiot. Maybe “idiot” is too strong a term, but we have to have sympathy for her while she’s, essentially, two-timing our male leads, so it’s really up to McG and the screenwriters to find a way to put Reese into that predicament and make her actions seem believable and non-idiotic. The movie doesn’t work if we can’t understand why these two guys are blowing up half the city to be with her, so I really hope the future trailers work a little harder to make us understand Reese’s decision.

The other possible hole in the package revolves around the delicate line between action and comedy. There is something really madcap, over-the-top, and borderline silly about the escalating prank war between Pine and Hardy in the trailer, and, if they nail that tone, that’s amazing. Heck, the title of the movie comes from a Daffy Duck line, so there should be something loony at the core of “This Means War”. That being said, it’s really hard to tread the line between silly comedy and action without lapsing into parody. “True Lies” and “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” are prime examples of movies that brilliantly balanced that line. On the flip side, if you let that lunacy get out of control, you end up with Steven Spielberg’s “1941”, where it just turns into an orgy of bombast and craziness with nothing really behind it. I’m heartened that “This Means War” seems to be using “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” as its template of what it wants to be – Chelsea Handler is more or less playing the Vince Vaughn role – but, hopefully, McG will be able to give the film its own voice rather than just delivering his own bromance adaptation of Pitt and Jolie going to war. (Mr. and Mr. Smith, as it were.)

(All that said, I’m also interested to see when the trailers introduce the real bad guy of “This Means War” because I don’t believe for a second that Pine and Hardy don’t team up with Reese in the end to take down a bay guy, working their issues out along the way.)

TRAILER OUTLOOK: Definite potential, but we’ve been hurt by McG before. Prove to us that this isn’t just a riff on the” True Lies of Mr. and Mrs. Smith” and we’ll be there opening night, McGinty.

By TOM BURNS
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
tom@hollywoodchicago.com