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Released on Valentines Day, this romantic-action-comedy stars Chris Pine and up-and-comer Tom Hardy
as two CIA agents who accidentally fall for the same, apparently desirable girl, played
by Reece Witherspoon, who curiously has returned to mediocre comedy films after winning Best
Actress Rather than treating their mutual girlfriend with the respect of a human being,
they instead decide to battle for her love with a series of dates, constantly trying
to one-up one another. And when that fails, they merely resort to sabotage and pranks
to stop each other. -CLIP- In the two weeks since it's release, this unique blend of explosions
and flirting has already made back it's 60-million dollar budget. At a brisk 97-minutes, this
interesting, but thin concept thankfully never has time to overstay it's welcome. Directed
by McG, this film is driven a fun and eclectic soundtrack that includes a humorous scene
that has Pine singing the theme from Titantic -- moments before getting a tranq dart in
his neck from his angry partner. The romantic-comedy scenes are familiar, but play out with a good
dose of action and spy-work thrown in. In her supporting role, Chelesea Handler isn't
as raunchy as expected, and is rather surprisingly funny in several of her scenes. The low-stakes
action however, is what strangely seems to work best in this motion-picture. It's rare
that a rom/com/action blend would actually produce effective results in any one category,
but I was pleasantly surprised by some of the chases, fights, and thrills this movie
provided. It premiered Valentine's week for a reason: it's a great date movie: women will
enjoy the playful romance plot, while guys will enjoy seeing bullets fly, and trucks
driving off unfinished freeways. Besides being somewhat familiar and safe in most scenes,
the biggest slight here are the character's actions: all three of them lying to each other,
when they're supposed to be building a relationship on trust. Their unrealistically reprehensible
behavior aside, this is a decently fun movie for what it is. "This Means Wars", a "Playfully
exciting action, occasionally funny". Now that you've heard my review, let's read some
of yours from the YouTube comments.
The rate-o-matic to show us how we both scored "This Means War" - a SIX and a SIX. You praised
the action, but you weren't as impressed with the more familiar romantic-comedy elements,
or average execution - you thought it was good. I definitely agreed, this film was enjoyable,
fast, and fun -- so long as you don't focus on anything too closely, I thought this was
a good movie as well.