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Keeping Up With the Joneses

  • Film
Keeping Up With the Joneses
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Time Out says

Some of Hollywood's wildest talents are wasted in this feeble espionage comedy

Structured with the kind of obviousness that makes you first outwit the screenwriter and then hate movies in general, Greg Mottola’s painfully generic suburban spy comedy wastes everybody’s time, onscreen and off. Stuck-in-a-rut marrieds Jeff (Zach Galifianakis) and Karen (Isla Fisher) can’t help but ogle their newly arrived cul-de-sac neighbors, Tim (Jon Hamm) and Natalie (Wonder Woman Gal Gadot). From afar, they seem like a commercial for sex, success and regular visits to the dentist; in person, it’s even worse. He’s a fascinating travel writer who speaks Chinese; she runs a cooking website and saves orphans. Of course they’re really undercover agents.

Before we hit the motorcycle chases and awkward backyard barbecues, there’s hope that Galifianakis and Fisher, who can both cut loose with magnificent klutziness (not here), will turn out to be the secretly capable ones. Manage expectations. Better yet, just get rid of them altogether. Instead, the best we get is a live snake bring chopped up for an exotic lunch, and that old chestnut: jumping from a hotel room into a swimming pool (that’s actually the climax of the film). Mottola has made some brilliantly idiosyncratic pictures: 'Superbad', 'Adventureland', 'The Daytrippers'. But as a hired hand here he’s allowed zero personality. Let’s hope he chalks this misfire up to a passing case of Bourne-like amnesia.

Joshua Rothkopf
Written by
Joshua Rothkopf

Release Details

  • Rated:12A
  • Release date:Friday 28 October 2016
  • Duration:105 mins

Cast and crew

  • Director:Greg Mottola
  • Screenwriter:Michael LeSieur
  • Cast:
    • Jon Hamm
    • Isla Fisher
    • Zach Galifianakis
    • Gal Gadot
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