Film review: The Spy Next Door

Published on Thursday 18 March 2010 18:04

THE SPY NEXT DOOR (PG) ** DIRECTED BY: BRIAN LEVANT STARRING: JACKIE CHAN, AMBER VALETTA, BILLY RAY CYRUS

THERE was a time when the closing credits gag-reel of a Jackie Chan movie would be filled with heart-in-mouth outtakes depicting the martial arts star's body-bruising stunt work. Not any more. In The Spy Next Door, the only hurdles he's shown crashing into are linguistic ones, which may be a sign that age has finally caught up with this once most agile of action heroes.

The breathlessly co-ordinated fight sequences that were his stock-in-trade are certainly kept to a bare minimum in this forgettable family comedy, which unfortunately means the fun is fairly muted too. Instead we have lots of cornball humour built around a deadening premise that requires Chan's secret agent to play babysitter to a trio of obnoxious kids whose mother (Amber Valetta) has become the object of his affections.

Scenes of domestic chaos duly follow as Chan's super-spy Bob Ho has to juggle meal times, school schedules and painful attempts at family bonding with his ongoing reluctant efforts to save the world one last time from a megalomaniac Russian villain.

In case you need another reason not to see it, a ludicrously coiffed Billy Ray Cyrus stars as his CIA handler.