Mr. and Mrs. Smith DVD Review (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie) Empire Movies

MR. AND MRS. SMITH DVD REVIEW

Mr. and Mrs. Smith
(Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment)

The Movie

The Extras

Reviewed by

5.5/10

4/10

Brendan

Mr. and Mrs. Smith is the movie that cost Jennifer Aniston her marriage. It was during the filming of this movie where Brad Pitt most likely cheated on his wife with Angelina Jolie or at least we can assume that is what happened.

Anyways, about the movie - Mr. and Mrs. Smith is the story of John and Jane Smith, two suburbanites leading a seemingly ideal life except for two small problems. Like many married couple, they seem to despise each other. And more importantly both are hiding their secret identities as assasins and they will soon cross paths when they are faced with the task of killing each other. Mr. and Mrs. Smith also stars Vince Vaughn, who is apparently thrown in there for a bit of comic relief during his brief time on the screen. Ironically, Vince Vaughn is rumoured to be the new Mr. Jennifer Aniston.

I have to say that although Vaughn is pretty humourous, it is Brad Pitt who really steals the show in this movie. He is funny and in the few scenes where he is able to kick ass, he does it with great style. Still, I was quite disappointed by Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I was expecting much more from this movie but instead found myself enjoying the first 45 minutes or so and being almost bored by the last 45 minutes. The movie starts with a bit of humour, some decent action scenes, a bit of intrigue and some interest as to where the story is going but it ends up being a loud, car-crashing, gun-shooting type of movie, almost something you would expect to see in a Jerry Bruckheimer production. It ends up being predictable and uninspiring. The story is pretty weak and near the end, the movie just starts to drag. I know there's is some sort of hidden message in there about relationships too but perhaps Brad and Angelina aren't the people who should be giving us this message. In many ways, Mr. and Mrs. Smith reminds me a bit of The Mexican - another movie starring two Hollywood heavyweights - Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts. So much hype, yet somewhat disappointing.

Now available on DVD, Mr. and Mrs. Smith is sort of a bare bones version of the DVD. I'm sure there's more to come later. Here's what we get on this one:

Making a Scene Featurette - Approximately 8 minutes of talk about the scene where Brad Pitt jumps on the car that Angelie Jolie is driving. Comments from the director, a couple of producers, an editor, a stunt co-ordinator and a brief comment from Angelina. A little behind-the-scenes footage with Brad and Angie looking very comfortable with each other. It's a decent feature but they do what I get the feeling almost all filmmakers do - complain about how hard it was to make the scene and about how fabulous the actors are. We get to see that scene with Brad jumping on the car over and over and over and over and over...

Deleted Scenes - Three long deleted scenes. That's it. Although they are pretty long.

Commentaries - Three commentaries. That's right - three. I painfully listened to all three. One is by director Doug Liman and screenwriter Simon Kinberg, the second by producers Akiva Goldsman and Lucas Foster and the last by editor Michael Tronick, production designer Jeff Mann and visual effects supervisor Kevin Elam. I can't really say any of them stood out over another but if you had a gun to your head and had to chose one to listen to, I would say the Liman/Kinberg commentary. That's the one with the most interesting information. The only thing I really got from these commentaries - I think the budget for this movie was about $15. The director had to film some scenes at his mother's farm or something like that. They couldn't film scenes in New York that were meant to be shot in New York because Brad and Angelina were too expensive to bring to New York. You can only use the "F" word once in a movie, otherwise, you will get an "R" rating.

There is also a theatrical teaser, a theatrical trailer, a soundtrack spot and a Family Guy trailer.

Inside Look has a trailer for the movie "The Sentinel" which is coming out this year. It stars Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland, Eva Longoria and Kim Basinger.

Overall, Mr. and Mrs. Smith was probably my biggest disappointment of 2005. It was not a terrible movie. In fact, after watching it again, I realized the movie had some very entertaining moments. But it fell well below my expectations and maybe I have no one but myself to blame for that. As for the bonus features on the DVD, well, I would say they are equally disappointing. Three commentaries and barely a peep from Pitt and Jolie about anything.

Features
Deleted Scenes, Commentary by Director Doug Liman and Screenwriter Simon Kinberg, Commentary by Producer Lucas Foster and Producer Akiva Goldsman, Crew Commentary, Making a Scene Featurette, Trailers

Video
Widescreen (2.35:1)

Audio
English 5.1 DTS, English 5.1 Dolby Surround, French Dolby Surround, Spanish Dolby Surround

Subtitles
English, Spanish, Closed-Captioned

Release Date
November 29, 2005

Rating
PG-13/14A

Length
120 mins.

Email Brendan About This Review:

Your Name:

Your Email Address:

The information entered on this page will not be used to send unsolicited email
and will not be sold to a third party. Please refer to our Privacy Policy.