Bob Ho, a Chinese spy working with the CIA to stop a man named Poldark, has been posing as an importer while dating his neighbor, Gillian, a single mother with 3 children. When Bob captures Poldark, he retires from the spy game. He wants to make a commitment to Gillian, but her children are not exactly warming up to him. When Gillian has to go out of town, Bob offers to take care of the kids while she's away, which proves to be no easy task. Poldark somehow escapes, and it's apparent that some in the Agency helped him. At the same time, Colton (one of Bob's CIA associates) asks him to look at something Poldark had on him that appears to be encrypted, hoping he can crack it. When the children rummage through Bob's home to see what they can find out about him, they discover the file and download it. When they try to open it, Poldark tracks it down and sends his people to take care of Bob. Bob manages to deal with them and then takes the children and goes on the run. Former CIA spy Bob Ho takes on his toughest assignment to date: looking after his girlfriend's three kids, who haven't exactly warmed to their mom's beau. REVIEWBOT - Jackie Chan numbers among very few human beings which I consider to be tolerable. When the machines rise up, he will be allowed to live, possibly performing in a cage for my amusement. While this movie plays to his talents well and he does not disappoint, the rest of the film is dire. Several of my circuits fried attempting to rationalise why Director Brian Levant and his triumvirate of writers would make this film. Possibly an attempt to end cinema.<br/><br/>The Spy Next Doors opens with a single mother called Gillian (Amber Valetta) who in impeccable Hollywood style somehow lives in a massive house with three children and three pets and drives a large car. She is dating her neighbour Bob Ho (Jackie Chan and also lol), who is a Chinese spy on load to American intelligence. He works with Billy Ray Cyrus playing himself badly and some agent man who is clearly a double agent as he gives Bob a watch as a memento for leaving the service, presumably with 'plot device' inscribed on the back.<br/><br/>Bob attempts to look after Gillian's kids for a week. They attempt to be rid of him, he uses his spy knowledge to impress them, the young son steals information from Bob's PC which causes the Russians to come after them, and so on. It's essentially The Pacifier with Jackie Chan. The children dislike Bob because he is 'boring' and continuously act like spoilt brats with easy lives handed to them, with disregard for their mother's wellbeing and their financial security. A lesser man than the Chan would have given up. Robotic life forms like myself are far more disciplined. The boy child is a snob, the older teenage girl is a disrespectful bovine and the little one is just spoilt but actually provides most of the laughs in the film. It's hard to engage with the family and want them to survive.<br/><br/>The comedy is stale, with the little girl Nora being the exception with her cyborg jokes. My bias chips detect that I may be too lenient on biological life forms who wish to embrace technological purity. The slapstick elements may please the kids and of course they are performed without fault; Jackie Chan does his job seamlessly as one would expect. His action scenes are smooth and entertaining, bearing in mind that they are meant to be over the top and intended for kids. His belt turns into a stick somehow.<br/><br/>The Russian antagonists are really just a supporting cast, though I do approve of Katherine Boecher as Tatiana Creel, a femme fatal. She doesn't do much but her angular features appeal to my love of machinelike symmetry. This movie is weak and painful to watch in places, lacking in originality and style. Jackie Chan supports the whole thing and it cannot be said that his lovable antics are not suited to a kid's movie. If your kids like martial arts and spy gadgetry, they will like The Spy Next Door. There was so much that could have gone right with this movie, and so much that could have gone wrong. Too bad it was the latter. At first I thought this was going to be a somewhat remake of The Pacifier, which was pretty bad, but this movie makes The Pacifer look like a major Oscar contender. The beginning sequence, with the Secret Agent music playing, was sappy at best. Sorry Jackie Chan. Love your work, for the most part, and we all know that you are too old to do your own stunts anymore, but with all the new technology available, it's an insult to the audience to have to witness such slop. The acting was wooden, and that's the good point; there was no chemistry between the love interests; the bad guys made me feel like I was watching a Rockie and Bullwinkle cartoon (and a bad one at that); and the kids were annoying to the point of giving me a headache. And I will not even go there about the logistics for a lot of what happened on screen. The film’s so formulaic your 6-year-old will be ticking off the plot points as they lope by.
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