The Spy Next Door

Directed by Brian Levant, The Spy Next Door follows Jackie Chan’s Bob Ho, a Chinese spy passing himself off as a pen importer, as he agrees to watch the children (Madeline Carroll’s Farren, Will Shadley’s Ian, and Alina Foley’s Nora) of the woman (Amber Valletta’s Gillian) he’s been seeing – with complications ensuing after Bob’s enemies come looking for a stolen computer file. Filmmaker Levant, armed with Jonathan Bernstein, James Greer, and Gregory Poirier’s screenplay, delivers a mostly tiresome endeavor that fares especially poorly within its generic and sluggish first half, as the movie has, in its opening stretch, been suffused with a series of less-than-engaging (and rather tedious) elements that cumulatively establish an atmosphere of woeful tedium. (It is, for example, impossible to see much value in the ongoing emphasis on Carroll’s eye-rollingly rebellious Farren.) And although the movie does boast a typically strong Chan turn and a very small handful of compelling sequences, including a fun interlude detailing a fight within a Japanese restaurant, The Spy Next Door‘s less-than-enthralling vibe persists right up until it finally progresses into an admittedly engaging climax rife with over-the-top fights and action set-pieces – with the effectiveness of this third act ultimately not quite enough to compensate for an otherwise lifeless piece of work.

** out of ****