Mr. & Mrs. Smith Series Review: When the Remake Is Even Better Than The Original | Prime Video

Cast: Donald Glover, Maya Erskine, Paul Dano, John Turturro, Michaela Coel

Created By: Francesca Sloane, Donald Glover

Streaming Platform: Prime Video

Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars)

Mr. & Mrs. Smith, a spy-comedy TV series created by Francesca Sloane and Donald Glover and starring Glover himself together with Maya Erskine, will be released on Prime Video on February 2nd. If, several years ago, someone had dared to predict a television reboot of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, how many would have believed it? Especially imagine a possible involvement of Donald Glover still fresh from a cult-like Atlanta. A mix of elements worthy of the best unlikely bet, also because the 2005 film starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie cannot exactly be defined as a masterpiece. Of course, it did well at the box office, the pair of protagonists – thanks also to their personal stories – helped to make the film extremely recognizable in some ways, and consequently, almost 20 years later, it is not a name that has fallen into oblivion. To the point of deserving a television reboot from Prime Video? Here perhaps we will give, at least for current times and how the market works, a so-called unpopular opinion: it is precisely films of this kind that require a reboot, whether on the big or small screen.

In our opinion, we need to get into the mindset of giving a second life to productions that have failed to fully convey intriguing ideas rather than remake after remake of big names from the past. We don’t need the much-rumored remake of Scarface, in short, but much more. And this new incarnation of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, of which we were able to watch debuts today on Prime Video, seems to be a delightful confirmation of this – as well as being one of the few Prime Video series of February. We will probably never know what the “creative differences” behind this departure would be, nor what could have happened if the showrunner of that little gem Fleabag had remained, but Prime Video’s elegant, easy-to-watch series bears no sign of interrupted development – ​​and, thankfully, few traces of the rather poor film from which it is based. In other words: the goal was to sign a reinvention with personality, and it was fully achieved. As we will see in our review of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, we are faced with a remake with great personality, a fun action-thriller series with a couple who have excellent chemistry on screen.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith Series Review: The Story Plot

The story is familiar: In Mr. & Mrs. Smith, two lonely strangers get jobs at a mysterious spy agency. Of course, the job offer is tempting wealth, world travel, and a luxury apartment in New York, but it’s not all rosy: they have to take on new identities by pretending to be in an arranged marriage, passing themselves off as Mr. John Smith and Mrs. Jane Smith. They’ll have to maintain this cover as married men, undertaking a high-stakes mission each week as their relationship strengthens and fractures in equal measure. Will they be able to keep the balance? During the hiring interview, Jane revealed that she was held back by what she described as “antisocial tendencies.” John, on the other hand, remembers being called “emotionally unintelligent”. Not exactly qualities that favor the success of a marriage, even if it is fake.

However, as we follow the “newlyweds” both at home (an enviable Manhattan townhouse) and on various weekly espionage and sabotage missions – many of which feature captivating guest stars such as John Turturro, Sharon Horgan, Wagner Moura, and Paul Dano – we see their initial distrust develop into shy curiosity, then a heated conversation and, finally, a real love story. The plot is actually very simple and immediately takes some timid distance from what was the beating heart of the little girl in 2005: we are soon introduced to John (Donald Glover) and Jane (Maya Erskine), two newly hired by a mysterious agency who will find themselves posing as a married couple to ensure better coverage for their operations. But what sort of operations? Mainly murders or in any case rather shady affairs, the important thing is not to ask too many questions and complete the tasks while our duo slowly learns to know each other.

In essence, it is a series that is divided with astonishing naturalness between sequences typical of a spy-thriller and others worthy of an atypical romantic comedy, both dominated by the magnificent screen presence and charisma of Glover and Erskine. We would like to underline the emphasis on the naturalness of the mix between these two elements since one of the problems most often encountered in productions that aspire to have a plurality of themes and stylistic registers is precisely not allowing the various components to communicate. The narrative fabric then frays loses effectiveness, and excessive and out-of-place cuts occur, as if you were watching multiple series at the same time. Mr. & Mrs. Smith avoids similar shortcomings with masterful elegance, immediately impactful writing by the protagonists and situations – as well as conversations – that are never forced or inserted in casual ways. The work and the evolution of the relationship between John and Jane all flow with an enviable naturalness and, from this point of view, Prime’s new proposal can already be considered a success.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith Series Review and Analysis

Instead, in the title above we have spoiled the main reason why Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a series not to be missed, and it is the creator and protagonist Donald Glover. If you have seen Atlanta (on Disney+) or Swarm (on Prime Video) you already know that Glover’s touch is original, and ironic but also raw, violent yet funny, real, and surreal at the same time. And Mr. & Mrs. Smith is no exception. Starting from the most theoretically predictable thing there is, i.e. the remake of something already seen, Glover manages to surprise, entertain, and keep you in suspense for the entire duration of the episodes. This series had a troubled production, being postponed due to strikes in Hollywood and also recording the withdrawal of what should have been the female protagonist, Phoebe Waller-Bridge (the protagonist of Fleabag). In the end, though, the product that makes it to screens is simply brilliant, unique, and seemingly perfect. Not to be missed under any circumstances.

In the hands of Glover and co., Mr. & Mrs. Smith becomes an intelligent treatise on the deconstruction of a couple’s love story in which the spy part becomes a pretext to associate a genre of entertainment. The series begins in this mood, because, after a small aside, both Donald’s John and Maya Erskine’s Jane seem like two volunteers for a blind date, only that, instead of talking to each other by looking into each other’s eyes, they confess in front of a mind electronic with the task of evaluating them as suitable or not. A very interesting nuance, which shows how from profiling which is based on identifying suitable characteristics for an intelligence mission it is then very easy to end up talking about oneself, one’s inner being, and what motivates them as human beings. Something that reality shows make a living from and which in this case is exploited very well to make us understand how alone, fragile, and desperate two people can be who agree to become husband and wife to carry out work tasks.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith works a lot on this aspect to write two protagonists who are not easily readable, but who instead slowly reveal themselves to the viewer, even disregarding some clichés of the more or less classic rom-com (the series often takes going around proposing situations only to overturn them, except one, which unfortunately still seems inevitable for this type of narration) and therefore proving to be less “smooth”. On the other hand, we are in a series created by Glover, who has made the grotesque and the construction of the unexpected his main ways of analyzing human nature and this case too is no exception, indeed, the tones and even different frames almost make one think to a wink towards a soft dystopia in which you are free to attack the matter you are talking about, that is? Yes, let’s go back there, the love story of a couple.

Expect the unexpected, because the series seems to chase this goal both for the writing and for the visual and scenographic gimmicks (we almost always go around the world, even when we stay in America) and also with regards to the cameo’s exception of actors almost always out of role (even if after seeing them in that role you wonder why they never did it before). The episodes are divided into a very short vertical plot to give substance to a horizontal plot, finding in the current mission the narrative arc with which to tell a slice of the couple, always playing with this hybridization with the story of the spouses’ work activity and, rightly, borrows several gimmicks from coming of age. We are talking about the construction of oneself through identification with others, something that in the audiovisual story is done through the gaze. To make a long story short: the new John and Jane, being two very different people, except for the fact that they are both alone and desperate, try to discover each other by constantly looking at each other.

Looking into each other’s eyes, looking into computers, cell phones, chronologies, and eyes, in the bodies and lives of others, couples or not. The series also plays on this by using solutions that refer to voyeurism several times, having no problem proposing ironic and/or borderline situations. After all the protagonists have decided to leave everything behind and therefore only have each other to move forward (more or less, actually, but we don’t want to tell you anything). The first episodes of Mr. & Mrs. Smith have given us an interesting series, which reworks the material from which it was born originally and intriguingly, but which does not put the viewer or the most pop vision first, on the contrary, it fishes from “Gloverian” language and enjoys defusing the classic representation of the genres he carries forward, both when he talks about couples and spy stories. A series to be discarded, which seeks its recognizable personality one episode at a time, let’s see if going forward it will find the definitive square and stop at some juicy promises.

As the creative minds of this production, Glover and Sloane decided to delve into the psyche of the protagonists, bringing therapy into play and letting emerge the fears, the supposedly irreconcilable problems, and the doubts of the two as people, all masked by the ironic double game of hiding their true identities. There’s inspired dialogue – with hilarious bed confessions – and the typical sitcom vibe is introduced sparingly in some episodes. This naive, nostalgic, almost kitsch nostalgia for the television format of the past fits perfectly with the tone of the series, as does the cast of first-rate guest stars: Alexander Skarsgård, Eiza González, Sarah Paulson, Sharon Horgan, Ron Perlman, Billy Campbell, Úrsula Corberó, Paul Dano, Michaela Coel, John Turturro, Parker Posey, and Wagner Moura. It is a real parade of big names on television and cinema.

Erskine undoubtedly confirms himself as the right choice to act alongside Glover, because the touching, often funny and improvised confrontations between the two prove to be the real strong point of the series. We follow John and Jane from their first meeting through every significant step of their fake/real marriage – the episodes are based on missions that coincide with relationship milestones, such as the first date, the first real date, etc. There’s a tender sweetness to this duo that far surpasses the Smiths’ deliberately dysfunctional marriage from the 2005 film. With a fascinating spy mythology that develops over time and a seemingly endless array of A-list guest stars, Mr. and Mrs. Smith could buck the trend of its genre, proving strong enough to sustain additional seasons. As in all good marriages, compromise is important, and Glover and his team have created something that brilliantly blends the stakes of the film with the relaxation of television viewing, giving us the best of both worlds. Nothing too perfect – what wedding is? but the Smiths are certainly a couple we would like to invite into our home again.

A decidedly more introspective approach becomes the added value of a series that does not wish to replicate pre-existing models but rather plays with the genre by saying that sense of constant connection-disconnection of our society. Speaking of this, Donald Glover and Maya Erskine are very good at giving life to two characters willing to do anything because they are convinced, they have nothing to lose. Also interesting is the choice to characterize John and Jane with two different ethnic backgrounds, a choice that is not forced but which, on the contrary, emphasizes the desire to make them closer to each other. Probably more than Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt were at the time, with all due respect to everyone. We just have to find out how Mr. & Mrs. Smith will continue but in our opinion, the series is already the surprise of this first week of February.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith Series Review: The Last Words

Although the basic setting is familiar and light, Mr. and Mrs. Smith never give the impression of being artificial or stale, thanks to its energetic energy and the charming pair of actors Glover and Erskine, who exude an effervescent chemistry effortlessly. Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a very well-finished series, with an indie flavor in the approach, the language, and the dynamics of the couple, but at the same time, it is not a perfect series because it is missing something in the overall plan of the series. The protagonists are excellent.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith Series Review: When the Remake Is Even Better Than The Original | Prime Video - Filmyhype

Director: Francesca Sloane, Donald Glover

Date Created: 2024-02-02 17:48

Editor's Rating:
4

Pros

• Glover's writing and his gimmicks are always interesting.
• The characters are intriguing, even in their angularity.
• The hybridization between spy story and rom-com is functional.
• The imagery from which the series draws has the promise of always being able to surprise.

Cons

• It's not a series that puts the pop side first.
• The desire to disregard every expectation can be an obstacle to identification.
• This seems like a series to look forward to.