On January 17th, the streaming service Netflix released the comedic spy action film «Back in Action», in which Cameron Diaz returned to acting after a 10-year hiatus. Her co-star on set was Jamie Foxx, for whom this is already the fifth project on Netflix in the last five years. In the review below, we discuss what exactly this story, aiming at another Mr. and Mrs. Smith offers the audience and whether it’s worth spending your time on the new release at all.
Genre comedic spy action
Director Seth Gordon
Starring Cameron Diaz, Jamie Foxx, Glenn Close, Kyle Chandler, Andrew Scott, Jamie Demetriou, McKenna Roberts, Ryland Jackson
Premiere Netflix
Release Year 2025
Website IMDb
It’s been 15 years since former CIA agents, now a regular couple, Matt and Emily left their dangerous work, had kids, and settled in a quiet suburb of Atlanta. But one day, their cover is blown, and befuddled youths with hostile intentions pay the couple a visit. So now, the retired operatives must recall their combat skills to fend off the uninvited guests and prevent a critical technical device from falling into the wrong hands.
But whatever the case, after the aforementioned films, Diaz decided to take an indefinite leave, during which she managed to marry Benji Madden of the pop-punk band «Good Charlotte» and have two children. Unfortunately, her return to the big screen can hardly be called triumphant, as the aptly named new release «Back in Action» turned out to be a recycled nonsense as if scripted by ChatGPT.
We are faced with a thoroughly tiresome cinematic trend of pseudo-comedic couples in distress, multiplied by sterile nothingness.
The problem is that in recent times, the industry has churned out these kinds of monotonous adventures aplenty. The details may vary, but the essence is the same — the main characters, a man, and a woman, stand up against villains, and ideally, the situation should have a certain context. Or, for example, intelligence agencies recruit a perplexed newbie, or someone involved is unaware of the real trade of the person next to them.
Actually, «The Family Plan» has the most in common with «Back in Action» — in both cases, the happy families have to leave their idyllic suburb and flee from bad guys. Moreover, the main points from the review of the movie with Wahlberg can easily be copy-pasted here. So if you are still not tired of such a soulless, repetitive conveyor, you can only applaud your resilience and patience.
For everyone else, there’s nothing worthwhile to catch here — it’s another standard story with a mandatory MacGuffin, James Bond-esque parties in tuxedos, terrorists named something like Baltazar Gore, and utterly boring fights of insignificant extras with invincible retired special agents.
Indeed, even at the level of individual scenes, this film exudes blatant derivativeness — just recall the episode with the motorcycle crashing into a villain, which has probably been in dozens of action films, or the dismal fate of the main villain, borrowed from an action movie like «xXx» (2002). And in one action scene, Diaz and Foxx almost grab lightsabers to fend off the futile enemy minions.
Overall, «Back in Action» conveys a message that in our times, it’s much harder to handle rebellious teenagers than sinister terrorists. And it makes it clear that if one is to return to acting, it definitely should not be for such films.