'Spy Next Door' another disappointing kiddie comedy

Posted January 14, 2010 10:00 pm

Dann Gire

Brian Levant's "The Spy Next Door" is being marketed as a family comedy, but for action movie fans, it's truly a tragedy.

Jackie Chan, one of the greatest and most popular Hong Kong action movie stars, has been reduced to "acting" in this poorly written, badly directed, amateurishly performed and insufferably condescending movie.

Chan joins the elite group of action stars who've made the quantum leap into disappointing kiddie comedies: Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Kindergarten Cop" and "Jingle All the Way," Vin Diesel in "The Pacifier" and Sylvester Stallone in "Spy Kids 3-D."

Apparently, hack family comedies are where action movie careers go to die.

In "The Spy Next Door," Chan plays Bob Ho, a mild-mannered nerd who lives next to single mom Gillian (Amber Valletta) and her three precocious kids, tough teen Farren (Madeline Carroll), rambunctious Ian (Will Shadley) and cute little 4-year-old Nora (Alina Foley).

Bob is really a secret agent from China working on special loan to the CIA, mainly Agent Colton James (singer Billy Ray Cyrus in a robotic performance that screams "Don't Give Up Your Day Job") and his boss, Director Glaze (George Lopez).

Bob wants to marry Gillian, but her kids hate him and accuse him of being square.

When Gillian leaves home to take care of her ailing father, Bob begs for the chance to baby-sit her children so they can get to know each other. Gillian isn't sure.

"I've brought down dictators," Bob says. "How tough can three kids be?"

Cue the kiddie shenanigans.

Meanwhile, a cartoony, fashion-challenged Russian villain named Poldark (Magnus Scheving) intends to wreck the U.S. oil reserves with diabolic bacteria that digest petroleum products in a matter of seconds.

Through various plot manipulations, young Ian accidentally downloads a Russian secret plan on his computer, and that motivates Poldark to command his agents, among them Russian hottie Creel (Katherine Boecher) to track down the family and "keel dem."

Good thing Bob is really a crack secret agent who has all sorts of cool gadgets to help him stay alive, even though Bob can't remember to put on mitts before picking up a tray out of the hot oven!

Good thing Bob can access satellites, even though he can't make oatmeal.

Chan is now 55, pudgier and slower than he has ever been in his career, performing death-defying acts of grace, power and speed. Still, there remains a bit of Chan magic in the comic action sequences where the superstar creates weapons out of household items, such as buckets, chairs and a pet turtle.

It probably would have been better for Levant, the Highland Park native who directed the lame comedies "Jingle All the Way," "Are We There Yet" and "The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas," to have deleted the traditional Chan outtakes at the end.

What does it say about a comedy when the mistakes are funnier than the parts actually designed to be funny?

'The Spy Next Door'

One and a half stars

Starring: Jackie Chan, Billy Ray Cyrus, George Lopez, Amber Valletta

Directed by: Brian Levant

Other: A LionsGate Films release. Rated PG. 92 minutes

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