Movie Review: The Spy Next Door

This morning, my son and I went to see an advance screening of the new family movie "The Spy Next Door". I received the tickets courtesy of Sittercity and Liongate films.

The movie is about a secret agent, played by Jackie Chan, who wants to retire from the agency and marry his next door neighbor. The only problems with his plans to have a normal life are that his girlfriend's three kids hate him and some Russian spies are trying to kill him to get back a top secret formula that his girlfriend's son has downloaded without knowing it.

I was really expecting this film to be a little dumb and silly since it is being marketed to kids, but the film turned out to be a really good and entertaining movie. Jackie Chan's usual film stunts play very well in this movie, especially when they involve the three children. The story is also a valid one since it shows that kids have very deep feelings around fitting in at home and at school and these feelings are something that adults should pay close attention to. And the movie is really funny and action packed. My son loved every wonderfully choreographed fight scene in this movie. And at the end, everyone in the audience stayed to see the fight scene out-takes that were shown during the movie credits.

"The Spy Next Door" is a good family movie that both parents and kids will enjoy. My son loved it and so did I. The movie is rated PG due to the fight scenes, but if your kids love to play video games with pretend violence or watch 'The 3 Stooges", the rating should be no problem.

"The Spy Next Door" opens Friday, January 15, 2010.