When Reese Witherspoon’s Lauren finds herself dating Chris Pine’s smooth-talking CIA agent FDR as well as his partner-in-espionage Tuck (Tom Hardy), she naturally recognizes their respective appeal and elegantly dissects it: FDR has “tiny hands” and Tuck is “British.”
Yes, This Means War is that dumb. Worse, it thinks you are too. When the two spies get wise to the other's wooing, a “war” breaks out for Lauren’s affections. Tuck and FDR bug Lauren’s home, install surveillance and heat sensors, and keep a GPS-enabled eye on each others’ dates.
Director McG shows no interest in establishing supporting characters, and the movie feels like it was constructed by a committee with focus-group worksheets in hand. It’s been so thoroughly stripped of anything remotely offensive that one hopes they simply threw the story out with the bathwater. --Justin Strout
