Note:  I wrote this two months ago.

When it first came out in 2005, I didn’t much like Mr. & Mrs. Smith.  There was too much bickering.  A decade later, I liked it much better, and having just rewatched, found it to be about as good as a movie gets.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith work for competing spy organizations, but neither one knows it.  They are both very capable assassins.  Six years into their marriage, they come into conflict on a job, and their cover is blown.

Brad Pitt is an amiable, charismatic and competent executive who is just coasting along in the marriage.  Angelina Jolie is an ice princess doing something in commercial real estate who acts like a good wife, but with no real warmth.  They are bored in their conventional suburban cover identities.  Both do a great job with their characters.  Vince Vaughn works with Pitt, and is his usual, irreverent self.

As their covers are blown, they remember why they were drawn together as they try to assassinate each other.  The entire time, they are doing the conventional “yes dear” bickering of a young couple.

The casting is perfect and the dialogue is funny and poignant.  The action scenes are plausible.  Jolie fights smart, but without the physical strength of Pitt.

If this movie were made today, Pitt would be bumbling, and Jolie would be smarter, quicker and stronger than the man.  I guess we will find out.  In February, a Mr. & Mrs. Smith TV series will be coming out on Amazon Prime.  It is supposed to be a TV adaptation of the Pitt-Jolie film, and I am not optimistic.

Donald Glover was fine in Community, but he doesn’t have much charisma.  Perhaps he has improved as an actor.  Brad Pitt was four years younger than Donald Glover is now, when he did Fight Club.  I don’t see Glover bringing that intensity to the series. 

Maya Erskine has done a lot of voice work, but no action TV or movies.  She was in a strange series called Man Seeking Woman in 2015.  She showed some charisma and may be able to help the show.  Initially, Phoebe Waller-Bridge was going to play the part.  She is the weak tea from Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.  She would have ruined the series.

I will try the series when it comes out, but without much optimism.  Since they did the race swap for diversity, even if it isn’t good, the actors will get a few seasons worth of work.

On this watch, I’d give the movie, Mr. & Mrs. Smith a 9/10 because there isn’t much that could be changed to improve it.