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Director: Brian Levant
Stars: Jackie Chan, Billy Ray Cyrus, Amber Valletta, Magnus Scheving
Rating: PG for action violence, mild rude humor
Running time: One hour, 32 minutes
“The Spy Next Door” is meant to be martial arts star Jackie Chan's “Kindergarten Cop.”
But Chan's movie makes the mistake of dumbing things down for a PG-rated audience. Even his sidekick (Billy Ray Cyrus) is dumber. In the process, the comedy becomes labored while the spy element loses the edge of danger that “Kindergarten Cop” was so good at conjuring.
Just as that movie turned tough guy Arnold Schwarzenegger into a child caregiver, so this one puts action man Chan out of his element, taking care of his girlfriend's three kids for a week.
Bob Ho (Chan) wants to marry Gillian (Amber Valletta), but they both know the kids don't like him. While she's away caring for her father after his hip replacement, Bob hopes to win the kids over.
Fat chance. At 13, Farren has a serious attitude toward authority and wants to wear too much makeup and not enough clothes. Ian, about 9, is a brainiac trying too hard to be cool. And Nora, 4, is a wiggle worm in pink prone to getting lost.
There's one other little problem. Bob is a secret Chinese agent on loan to the CIA, which he hasn't told Gillian. He's retiring so he can have a family life.
Or so he thinks. Ian gets onto Bob's computer and downloads a top-secret program onto his iPod. This turns Bob and the three kids into targets for Bob's old nemesis, Russian agent Poldark (Magnus Scheving). Unexpectedly, Bob is back in the spy business just as he's gone into the day-care business.
The actors playing Poldark and his Natasha-like partner have two of the worst Russian accents you'll ever hear, dahlink.
They're even worse than Chan's English, which makes a line like “At least you're not shy” sound like “Aleesh yuna chai.” Several times I wished for subtitles during this movie, even though it's in English. By the time you figure out what Chan just said, you've missed the next three lines of dialogue.
The bigger problem, though, is that the movie is looking for slapstick laughs, whether Chan is failing as he cooks breakfast for the kids or flailing as he tries to keep them out of harm's way. He and the kids are turned into physical-comedy buffoons along with the Russians.
Like bland oatmeal, this is wholesome enough if you want to burn an hour and a half with the kiddies. “The Spy Next Door” is likely to be a bigger hit with them than with parents who prefer spicier fare.
As for the movie's other primary audience, martial-arts fans of megastar Chan, they could be depressed by what they see here. Like all of us, Chan has gotten older. His reaction time has slowed, as his traditional ha-ha outtakes show during the closing credits.
Better to just rent a DVD of Chan in his prime, along with “Kindergarten Cop.”
Contact the writer:
444-1269, bob.fischbach@owh.com
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