Review of This Means War (2012) by Muzziklover — 17 Mar 2012

I thought this movie was okay. Though critics hated it, I thought it was watchable and I did laugh at some scenes in the movie even though they're quite contrived. I thought it would've worked better as a romantic comedy by itself instead of an action-romantic comedy as the action scenes were kind of dull and didn't really need a villain.

The film stumbles whenever it tries to juggle between trying to appeal to both women (Reese Witherspoon's relationship dilemma) and men (Chris Pine's and Tom Hardy's CIA work) and it ruins the consistency of tone.

I also found some of the jokes kind of flat and repeating myself, the action scenes are again, kind of dull. Chris Pine and Tom Hardy have the most screen time but they have to keep swapping between each other's scenes with Witherspoon, which is very distracting.

Chris Pine plays your typical womanising, arrogant douche bag but not in a likable sense and Tom Hardy plays the nice guy who just wants a serious relationship (contradictory with all his tattoos). Reese Witherspoon was okay but her character has trouble sticking to one personality, either she is an amazing, smart and interesting woman or a dumb broad who doesn't have any luck with relationships.

The thing I hated the most about this film is Reese Witherspoon character's best friend who is obnoxious, irritating and just there as a walking sex joke and shouldn't be in the movie at all. The best thing about this film is of course, Tom Hardy.

His charm and cool disposition gives the film a charismatic identity though it's strange to see him play as the straight guy and it would've made more sense if he played the womanising douche. Overall, I think this film is okay.