Lovely as it is to see Cameron Diaz starring in her first film in a decade, it’s equally dismaying that the film is “Back in Action.”
As the title suggests, Diaz is indeed back. Her last movie was the 2014 re-do of “Annie,” where she played Miss Hannigan. Here, she reteams with that film’s Daddy Warbucks figure, Jamie Foxx, in a superficial and glib Netflix spy comedy. (Diaz and Foxx also shared the screen before that in Oliver Stone’s 1999 football drama “Any Given Sunday.”)
But there’s nothing to this movie beyond the CGI-heavy set pieces and snarky banter that unfortunately have become standard. “Back in Action” isn’t as obnoxiously soulless as “Red Notice,” but it’s firmly within that subgenre of glossy, globetrotting action pictures you can stream while you fold your laundry. It all feels so cynical.
At least “Back in Action” has the whiff of aiming toward substance, although its premise is incredibly familiar. Diaz and Foxx co-star as Emily and Matt, former spies who fell in love with each other on an ill-fated mission 15 years ago. Having given up their dangerous life of espionage, they now enjoy a blissfully mundane existence in suburban Atlanta with their two kids: surly, sneaky teenager Alice (McKenna Roberts) and rule-following techie tween Leo (Rylan Jackson). When their former boss (Kyle Chandler) arrives on their doorstep and tells them they’ve been compromised, Emily and Matt must spring – let’s all say it together now – back in action.
Their goal is to track down the McGuffin doodad that eluded them in the flashback at the film’s start, which can … create widespread power outages? Something like that. Their children, who thought they were simply boring, middle-aged Gen Xers with bad taste in music, get dragged into the adventures and find out who they really are and what they can really do, like a big-budget version of “Spy Kids.” If anything works at all on any level in the film from director and co-writer Seth Gordon (“Horrible Bosses,” “Identity Thief,” “Baywatch”), it’s the way it depicts the tension that arises between parent and child during this hormonally fraught period of adolescence. Screen time: It’s a problem!
Roberts and Jackson at least show some nice comic timing. But it is mind-boggling how little chemistry Diaz and Foxx have. Individually magnetic and charismatic, these capital-A A-listers never gel with each other. A lot of that has to do with the script from Gordon and co-writer Brendan O’Brien (the “Neighbors” movies), which mostly alternates between shrieky bickering and people standing around explaining things to each other. When the movie settles down for a few seconds and allows them to interact with each other as actual human beings, we get a glimpse of what might have been. Diaz still has that sunny, go-for-broke demeanor that’s ordinarily her appealing trademark, and Foxx has a cool, tossed-off delivery that can be slyly charming. (He does get one laugh-out-loud joke about Jason Bourne.)
But “Back in Action” seems far more interested in overwhelming us with elaborate brawls and chases. Perhaps the most annoying trope of all that it borrows from recent action comedies is its reliance on ironic song choices to serve as a wacky contrast to the violence we’re seeing: Etta James’ “At Last” during a fire fight at a British gas station, James Brown’s “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” during a clash with thugs at the Tate Modern and – worst of all – Dean Martin’s “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head” when Matt and Emily are literally kicking people in the head on a private jet. This instinct is so smug and so tired at this point.
Glenn Close is well-cast as Emily’s estranged mother, a former spy herself who remains formidable long after her own retirement. But Andrew Scott goes woefully to waste as an MI6 agent who’s been on the hunt for Emily, and this desirable, powerful key, for his own personal reasons. One of our most startling and assured actors working today, Scott gets nothing to play and looks totally bored every time he’s on screen. As “Back in Action” drags on and on, we know exactly how he feels.