User Reviews

Greetings again from the darkness. Dozens of movies through the years make up the Spy Action-Comedy segment. Most of these lean heavily on either action (Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Red, Knight and Day) or comedy (Austin Powers, Get Smart, Date Night). The latest entry from director Greg Mottola and writer Michael LeSieur offers a more balanced approach while being somewhat grounded in familiar suburbia. Perfect casting certainly helps.

Comedies are the toughest genre to review because the only thing that matters does it cause you to laugh? depends on the sense of humor of each viewer and even their frame of mind while watching. So what I can report is that the full theatre at my screening was filled with enthusiastic laughter multiple times, along with a pretty steady stream of chuckles and giggling. This will undoubtedly vary from the accounts of uppity film critics who will discount the basic plot and obvious laughs (which is the whole point).

A James Bond-type opening credit sequence sets the tone as we abruptly shift to watching Jeff and Karen Gaffney (Zach Galifianakias, Isla Fisher) sending off their two sons to summer camp before returning home to their idealistic cul-de-sac suburban home. Things pick up when the new neighbors, Tim and Natalie Jones, arrive a seemingly perfect couple played by Jon Hamm and Gal Gadot. They are the type of couple who are beautiful to look at, stylishly dressed, and even show up with a blown-glass sculpture as a gift for their new neighbors.

Of course, this perfect couple is really married spies seeking information from the military weapons contractor where Jeff works as a Human Resources associate. It's Karen who senses something is off about the perfect couple, which leads to her stalking Natalie all the way to a dressing room where she is comically intimidated by Wonder Woman in black lingerie. On a side note, Ms. Fisher does have a later sequence where she proves to be anything but a homely housewife, despite how that dressing room scene is presented.

The men head off for some male bonding - at a highly unusual specialty restaurant, leading to one of the more manic sequences in the movie. The four leads are all excellent, but it's Gal Gadot who is the real surprise and her scenes with Ms. Fisher are the film's best. Both are allowed to shine, while the men are a bit more one dimensional. Galifianakias is the all-trusting good guy just happy to have some excitement in his life, while Hamm is the super cool spy (who wishes he wasn't). Both men seem to enjoy the chance to make friends, while the women are a bit more focused on tasks at hand.

Director Mottola is known for his films Adventureland and Superbad, and writer LeSieur is best known for Me, You and Dupree. The impressive thing about this latest is that the comedy mostly derives from character and situational interactions, and the expected steady stream of punchlines never materializes. There is even some insight into marriages that have become a bit too predictable, and the challenges of making new friends when all available energy is devoted to parenting and making ends meet.

In addition to the four leads, there are some funny moments for Maribeth Monroe, Matt Walsh and Kevin Dunn. The brilliant Patton Oswalt is cast as the self-nicknamed villain, and is responsible for one of the film's biggest laughs.

Of course, this is not subtle or high-brow humor, and the story line is predictable throughout. The laughs stem from the contrast of a subdued, comfy suburban life versus the sophisticated, over-accomplished jet-setting couple laughs clearly enhanced by the talented leads. So while this seems like the kind of movie I would usually ignore, perhaps it arrives at a time when laughing is simply preferable to the daily grind of an embarrassing and humiliating Presidential race. So go ahead and give laughter a chance it works even better than a stress ball.

Wow was this a disappointment. This movie reminds me of the extremely disappointing "Hail Ceasar", a great Cast, advertised as a comedy but utterly devoid of anything remotely funny. It is sort of like a horse race without any horses, a bar that does not serve alcohol, a basketball game where there is no basketball. Just some people standing around talking. The first scene telegraphs how this film is going. There is a meeting between Isla Fisher, Zach Galifanakis and their neighbors, Matt Walsh and Maribeth Monroe. Monroe talks about a number of euphemisms for making love. You could tell it was supposed to be funny and absolutely was not. At all. A portent of things to come. Fisher and Galifanakis play a boring couple who live in the suburbs. They are very boring. This is a change of character for Galifanakis, who usually plays a wild man, think "The Hangover" movies. Here is broadens his horizons; He plays very boring. Not a good move. The boring suburban couple only excitement is the new neighbors moving in next store. They are handsome and sexy, but not funny either. John Hamm and Gail Gadot try to recreate Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolee in "Mr. and Mrs Smith" only without the chemistry or wit. The plot is extremely predictable. Fisher is suspicious of her new neighbors. Galifanakis works at a top secret defense contractor, but he is clueless as to the real motives of Hamm. Of course Hamm and Gadot are spies, I mean they make James Bond look like a butcher. The worst scene is the conclusion. Walsh is supposed to meet with a crime lord known as "The Scorpion" played by Patton Oswalt. Spoiler: the big conclusion makes no sense. The Scorpion pays a suitcase full of cash for some microchips. But he finds out he is dealing with Galifanakis instead of Walsh, he decides to shoot him and Fisher. Some questions arise. Why? The Scorpion has what he wants, who cares who he was dealing with? It would make more sense if he wanted the cash as well as the microchips. And why was Fisher there? She wasn't needed and she was put in danger for no purpose. And then Hamm and Gadot are brought into the standoff with no explanation. The Scorpion and his goons have all these machine guns and are ready to kill all four of them. Fisher thrawts that by grabbing a butter knife, which she sneaks to Gadot. Oh that changes everything, Gadot has a butter knife which trumps 8 guys with machine guns. Seriously.

The 4 stars then get away from the goons by jumping out the window into a swimming pool. Everyone know that goons with machine guns are powerless to shoot people who are in a swimming pool. Galifanakis is afraid to jump, until the Scorpion shoots him twice in the chest. Then he decides to jump into the pool. Again, everyone knows that pool water cures bullet wounds in through the heart.

The script is stupid, predictable and unfunny. If you gave a 1000 chimpanzees 1000 typewriters, they would produce 1000 screenplays better than this one. Why 2 stars? The reason I went to see it in the first place. I like all 4 stars. But shouldn't they have been able to tell that the script was not funny or interesting when they read it? How can they make such crap?

The Gaffneys' lives are interrupted by the arrival of new neighbours, whose stunning looks are matched only by the sophistication of their lives.

Tim Jones is an accomplished travel writer, and his wife, Natalie, is a social media consultant, cooking blogger and heroine to Sri Lankan orphans.

The Gaffneys soon find themselves in the centre of international espionage that gives them a glimpse of life outside their comfort zone.........

Keeping Up With The Joneses is one of those comedies that offers absolutely nothing new to the genre of comedy, and basically borrows from films that are a lot better than this, and funnily enough, a lot worse.

If this was made in the eighties, it would have starred Steve Martin and Shelly Long as the atypical suburban couple, and probably Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner as the titular couple, and it would have been an absolute smash, because it would have felt relatively fresh.

Jump forward thirty years, and with films like Mr & Mrs. Smith, Killers, Housesitter, and a never ending plethora of fish out of water comedies, it feels stale, well worn, and relies on the star power of the cast.

The thing is, Galfiniakas is way out of his comfort zone playing the Everyman, and Gal Gadot is incredibly wooden in her role. So much in fact, it's setting the alarm bells ringing for Wonder Woman.

So the couple get into scrapes, find a little excitement in their mundane lives, and just like True Lies, assist in the final 'hilarious' act when special guest star Patton Oswald makes his appearance as the end of game bad guy.

But it isn't a terrible film, there are a couple of amusing moments, and Fisher plays the jittery housewife with panache, but you can't see those two as a couple.

If you want a comedy that is safe, and offers nothing new, then you may get a few giggles out of it.

Otherwise, if you never see this movie, trust me, you've already seen it.

I'm sort of sitting here at my computer scratching my head and trying to work out why I actually went out of my way to go and see this film. Okay, I'm not going to go as far as calling it rubbish (despite the fact that I gave it a rating of three, namely because I can't justify giving it any more), but the fact that I spent an hour walking to and from the cinema, twice mind you because the first time for some absolutely bizarre reason it was sold out, and it wasn't even opening night, just to see a movie of which upon watching the trailer at home on my computer I said to myself – this really doesn't look all that great – I still made the effort to go and see it.

The film is basically a spy story, and nothing all that original at that either. I guess after watching five seasons of Chuck when a spy movie hits the screen I do find it a little interesting, but then end up coming away from it somewhat dissatisfied. As for this film, as I mentioned, it really isn't all that original – new neighbours appear in the neighbourhood, nosy wife checks them out, ordinary couple get caught up in spy stuff, bad guy is confronted and beaten, and film ends – that is basically it. It's fun to watch but probably something that is more suited to sitting on the lounge at home than going out of your way to the cinema.

A couple of interesting things stood out though, one of them being Zac Galifianakis, who seemed to have started off as being the grot from The Hangover and has now come into a career of his own. In fact it seems as if he is the only person from the Hangover that has become a regular Hollywood actor. Actually, it appears that he was in two films that were released at the same time. However he has certainly moved away from the character that he was originally credited for and is now your friendly suburban Dad who may not be incredibly smart, but has his own talents. The other interesting thing is that this seems to be the movie for the middle aged people, sort of like me – kids are at camp, and they finally have some time to themselves. Actually, come to think of it Gen X's kids are finishing highschool and entering university, sort of, but the protagonists of this film are sort of my age.

In the end I'm going to say this film is okay, but not hugely fantastic, and it certainly wasn't worth going out of my way to see it at the cinemas this afternoon, though it did get me out of the house for a little while.

Don't expect to go into this laughing all the way, as it just won't happen. And judging by the audiences reaction, it wasn't just me who felt this way. Outside of a few chuckles here and there, you could generally hear a pin drop.

As a comedy this just fails on all accounts. Zach Galifianakis and Isla Fisher play Jeff & Karen Gaffney, a married couple who learn they are getting new neighbours. They're told that the house was purchased outright, sight unseen, and it's suspected that these newcomers may not be who they seem for some reason. Turns out they're actually spies.

Jeff works as an HR rep for an aerospace company, so after these spies buy the house next to him, they invite themselves over and secretly bug the house in order to see what they know, if anything, about leaked secrets. Also by working in HR, the male spy befriends Jeff as he may know who has spilled secrets to him in confidence as he knows that Jeff's computer has been used to send secret e-mails.

After some mediocre and largely unfunny detective work by Karen in following the female spy into Bloomingdales, and then later discovering a bugging device in the art glass present they were given, it's revealed that they are indeed spies who are ingratiating themselves to everyone who works at the aerospace company and who they believe has information that can lead them to suspected espionage.

The plot is fairly formulaic in regards to uncovering the operation and in order to finally bring down the kingpin behind the whole affair, and after being exonerated of any espionage, Jeff and Karen are recruited to pose in place of the 2 spies, so they are effectively used as bait, and after some more ho-hum unfunny moments, the operation unravels itself, good guys win, bad guys die and everybody goes back to their lives.

Sadly this could have been a lot funnier had they not gone for ridiculous sight gags and obvious set-ups for the ensuing humour that followed. Personally I don't think Galifianakis is all that funny and he seemed bored from start to finish. There are a few moments where this generates a chuckle but not enough to call itself a comedy. It squanders a decent story by splicing in too many "here comes a joke" moments instead of just letting the comedy flow naturally. This could have been better written as an action film with the moments of levity thrown in and it would have had a much better reception. I gave this 3 stars mainly because the story IS interesting (albeit predictable), despite lacking any real humour. Don't waste your money to see this, wait for it to come out on TV and you'll enjoy it more.