A few weeks ago, Fox moved the release date for This Means War from Friday, Feb. 17 to Tuesday, Feb. 14, just in time to become a Valentine’s Day date night movie. But one week before the new release date, it was shifted back to Feb. 17. Shuffling a movie around twice in two weeks right before its release is never a good sign. The fact that this dud is being pushed as a romantic comedy and the studio changed its Valentine’s Day release is only one of the major signs that This Means War isn’t good. This means even the studio has no faith in it.
Tom Hardy (Inception) and Chris Pine (Star Trek) play two childhood best buddies who now work together as secret agent partners. Their friendship is put to the test when they fall for the same girl (Reese Witherspoon) and begin a spy game of trying to win her over. Buy putting their resources to work, they learn more about her and sabotage one another’s dates.
What works? The bromance comedy between Hardy and Pine. What doesn’t work? Everything else. Witherspoon’s character is so fickle that she appears to have multiple personalities. Her words and actions are never consistent, changing from scene to scene. The romance between her and her co-stars is chemistry-less. The action is lame and familiar. The effects are laughable. The score is generic and annoying. But the worst thing about it all is Chelsea Handler.
Chelsea Handler cannot die off quick enough. Nothing about her is funny. She’s this gross old piece of leather passed off as being sexy and not a single of her Seth Rogen-ish rants is funny. Yet she’s cast in This Means War as a supposedly hot and hilarious female sidekick for Witherspoon to play off of. Every scene with Handler is unbearable.
It pains me to say this, but I’d rather sit through The Vow again than re-watch This Means War.
Photo credit: 20th Century Fox
