‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith’ presents spies’ vague adventures in fake marriage
It seems we’re not allowed to go more than a week or two without another reboot or remake or reimagination of a TV series or film from 20 or 30 years ago, and the dubious trend continues with the Prime Video spy comedy series “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” which is inspired by the 2005 Doug Liman film of the same name.
As you might recall, the movie starred a couple of crazy kids named Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt as Jane and John Smith, an upper middle-class couple who have been married for five (or six) years and are in a bit of a rut — until Mr. and Mrs. Smith learn they’re both high-level operatives working for competing contract-killing firms. This is what happens when you take your work home! Or your home to work!
The 2024 standalone update comes in the form of a gorgeously photographed and well-acted but maddeningly vague and weirdly lighthearted and often tone-deaf limited series, created by Francesca Sloane and Donald Glover, with Glover and Maya Erskine taking on the title roles.
We meet John Smith and Jane Smith as they’re meeting each other and assuming their cover identities as a married couple who work together as software engineers and live in a spectacularly appointed New York brownstone. They’ve been separately hired by a mysterious organization that might or might not be the CIA, and with each new episode they’re given a highlevel task that often involves taking out a target(s) for reasons that often go unexplained, which only serves to lower the dramatic stakes for the viewer.
John and Jane agree from the start that they won’t complicate things by having sex or developing any real emotional attachments to each other, and, OK, we’ll see how that goes. (Alas, these two fine actors are far more believable in the low-key, character-development scenes than in the ambitious but rather rote action sequences. It’s a stretch to buy either as hardcore operatives.)
So as not to spoil things, we’ll tread lightly and not go into the specifics of the characters played by an all-star roster of guest actors, including Alexander Skarsgård, Sarah Paulson, Eiza González, Sharon Horgan, Paul Dano, Michaela Coel and Wagner Moura. It’s great fun to see Ron Perlman playing against type in his episode; on the other hand, the John Turturro chapter is an unfortunate disaster.
At times, John and Jane seem like relatable, flawed, real people; on other occasions, they’re disturbingly cavalier about some of their missions, including some instances in which their actions could endanger the lives of not just their targets, but innocent bystanders. Every once in a while, there’s a juicy reveal — but more often, we’re left in the dark about too many key characters and events. There’s also a shootout that brings about a particularly nasty and off-putting development, and I’ll leave it at that. Like far too many “2.0” takes on past hits, “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” mostly feels … unnecessary.