A normal-ish Zach Galifianakis headlines this comedy’s quartet—he is joined by Isla Fisher, Jon Hamm and Gal Gadot—about a suburban couple suspicious that their beautiful new neighbors may be up to no good. They aren’t, but Tim and Natalie Jones (Hamm and Gadot) are spies, a plot device that redeems Fisher’s Karen Gaffney from merely being a delusionally bad neighbor.
Sadly, the movie is only mildly amusing at its best, which is during the comic action, not the tired suburban satire. The staid Gaffneys aren’t too far removed from the Fosters of Date Night. Director Greg Mottola got a lot more out of previous features Superbad, Adventureland and Paul, but those scripts—by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg; Mottola himself; and Simon Pegg and Nick Frost—were leagues better than this one by Michael LeSieur. The cast is game; the script is lame. Who thought a full-on comedic adaptation of Mr. and Mrs. Smith would work?
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