Loosely based on the 2005 film, the new Mr. & Mrs. Smith TV reboot uses the action-comedy genre to represent how impossible life is for so many people today, with two misfit unemployables turning to assassin work out of desperation.
The eight episodes of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, the new Amazon Prime remake of the 2005 Brad Pitt–Angelina Jolie hit movie, play at such a slow tempo, it’s as if you’re watching an experimental attempt to serialize an already-overlong indie art film and foist it on an unwary public.
Whether you can endure what is essentially the injection of action and comedy into something like Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story (2019) might depend on how much you like the lead actors, Donald Glover and Maya Erskine (PEN15), both of whom are versatile, compelling performers. They play misfit unemployables who apply for jobs as assassins and find that the hardest part of their dangerous new lives as John and Jane Smith isn’t the body count — it’s having to pretend to be married. The astonishingly good supporting cast helps too — it’s an unexpected pleasure to see colorful appearances by Paul Dano, Parker Posey, John Turturro, Alexander Skarsgård, Sharon Horgan, Sarah Paulson, Ron Perlman, and other notable talents.
Created by actor-singer-writer-producer Glover and Francesca Sloane, his fellow writer-producer on Atlanta, Mr. & Mrs. Smith is using the action-comedy genre as a way to represent how impossible life is now for so many people, which is a pretty good idea. So we recognize the dehumanizing process of the entirely computerized job interviews our two lead characters go through separately — sitting in a dark booth typing in anxious answers to more and more intrusive questions and having to submit fingernail clippings in tiny plastic bags to a small slot that opens up before them.
read more: https://portside.org/2024-02-11/new-mr-mrs-smith-very-different-brangelina-film
My wife and I just binged the entire season yesterday, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I take issue with the last comments from the reviewer:
As for the cruelly slow pacing in some episodes, that might really be evidence of widespread pathology in the entertainment industry.
You’ve noticed it, haven’t you? So many films and television series that are so much longer and slower than they used to be, right up to the edge of what you can sanely tolerate? Makes you feel like you’re part of some sort of malevolent social experiment by the powers that be, right? What do you think it means for all of us working Smiths out there?
Personally, I like a bit of character development in a TV series. That used to be one of the hallmarks of a well-written show.
I found the pacing to be spot on, considering the arc they needed to achieve in 8 episodes. To suggest it was “cruelly slow” seems to buy into the idea that modern audiences don’t have the attention span to enjoy a well-crafted tale.
Sounds like the critic’s attention span is decreasing and they don’t realize it, it’s so easy to blame others for something you’re not self aware enough to see in yourself.
My attention span has gone to shit lately too, I’m already an ADHD person, however the show was no slower than most other dramas, although maybe the critic was looking for more action since the Brangelina version of the story was filled with people shooting at each other. I personally liked that they explored the way their relationship developed, and that there were plenty of the shockingly funny scenes that Donald Glover and Hiro Murai tend to incorporate into their work.
If anyone is interested, we have a discussion thread in [email protected]
Can I just say I really enjoyed this version? Both versions are pretty fun for the time they have been released in!
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I watched the first one. I didn’t find it remotely funny at all. Maybe the comedy comes later? I found it quite boring actually. Probably why they ended the first episode with a trailer that spoiled the rest of the series and had all kinds of action and Har-har clips.
Goes from singing This is America to portraying an assassin 🤔
