The Spy that wowed me. 
This review is going to long, but I think you will like it. I did some homework on it.
With everything that has been going on, I figured we all need something funny. Kind of time to step back from everything that is going on for a bit. For me, there is one guy that always helps, one guy that no matter how much stress and sadness in the world can still get me smiling. (besides Dad I mean.)
Who you ask? Simple, my hommie.
Jackie Chan.
I have been a huge fan of him since I moved in here, Dad has everything of his that’s out on dvd i think. hehe. The first kung fu movie we watched together was Legend of Drunken Master. (yeah I know, some parents going say that’s not a kid’s movie. But it was SO MUCH FUN!) Since then I was hooked. So when I saw this movie coming out, I just had to see it. And I think you guys are going to like it as well.
The spy next door – A movie review by Darcy Low
“Spying is easy, babysitting is hard. Former CIA spy Bob Ho (Chan) takes on his toughest assignment to date: looking after his girlfriend’s three kids, who haven’t exactly warmed to their mom’s beau. And when one of the youngsters accidentally downloads a top-secret formula, Bob’s longtime nemesis, a Russian terrorist, pays a visit to the family.”
Okay first off let me say, this is a movie that has been done before. Everyone from Hulk Hogan to the Rock. A fish out of water story about some tough guy who meets his match when he has to babysit a group of kids. Well, forget those movies. While they were funny in part, they don’t hold a candle to this one.
Jackie plays a spy who is ready to quit the force and settle down. He is great at his job, but after falling in love with his next door neighbor; he has decided it’s time to put away all the cool gadgets, stop all the globe trotting, and finally get married. He goes on one last job, stopping a Russian bad guy and putting him away. (When the movie starts, with one of the coolest songs EVER; we are treated to scenes from his movies back when he was younger, which really helps to flesh out his character and gives us back story on Bob. Props to the writer on that one!) the only trouble for our hero’s wishes his one slight fact. His neighbor’s kids, yeah; they are less than impressed with him. In being a spy, he has to blend into the background. So he pretty much plays a dork. Just a average guy, sweat suits, dark horn rim glasses, his job is selling pens. Oh he is nice enough, but to kids he is just not dad material. For the mother though, this is just what she is looking for, someone stable and reliable. Someone to come home to and who will always be there, not “Someone who will run off, with not explanation.” She has been hurt before, as has her kids but a father who left.
The kids themselves are great, each one is completely different with their own sets of problems. (I want to touch on that later, I think it’s important.) The oldest, Farren; is a thirteen year old girl. She is still waiting for her dad to come back, and feels Bob is a threat to that. If he marries her mom and her dad does come back, what then? Next is Carl, is a geek, loves computers and music; and is very smart for his age. He likes girls but can’t figure out how to talk to them, and getting bullied by two school bullies that tend to throw him in the trash on a daily basis, doesn’t help. He just doesn’t trust Bob. The youngest, Nora is the baby of the family. She starts out the movie by liking Bob and even sticks up for him. But when her older brother tells her Bob is really a cyborg, she starts to have her doubts.
After Bob gets the Russian, he decides it is time to win over the kids. And when his girl friend’s father takes ill and she has to leave to go to him, (hey it’s a Disney film, what can you say?)he sees this as the perfect moment. He tells her to go and he will watch the kids for the week she is gone. He sees this as a bounding moment, the kid’s see this as heck week for Bob. Things are going smoothly, until the Russian escapes with the help of his gang. It seems he has had helped from someone within the group Bob used to work for. The Russian has developed a formula that eats oil, but when that formula gets downloaded accidentally; the race is on.
Now Bob has been called back into action, he not only has to spot the Russian yet again, he has to win over three kids, make sure that they are safe, make certain his future wife does not learn the truth about what he really does, and he has to find a Halloween costume at the last minute.
Can he do it? Will he stop the Russian in time, can the world be saved yet again? And all in time to get the kids up for school the next day?
Like I said, been done before; but this time it all works. I think that is in part on the actors in the film, I mean Billie Ray Cryus as a spy? George Lopez getting knocked out four times? (Once by a turtle?) We are talking win here people! But the real glue that pulls this together has to be Jackie Chan himself. His rubber face reactions, his comic timing, and just his personality; makes anything you watch with him enjoyable. And this is just plain fun to watch.
A little bit about Jackie Chan:
Jackie Chan, (His real name is Chang Kong Sang) was born on April 7th, 1954 in Hong Kong. He is not only a actor, but a singer as well. Even has albums out and does something called Cantopop and Mandopop. He was trained in the Chinese opera theater at a early age and is probably where the acting bug bit him. His nickname is Pao Pao, which means “Cannonball” because he weighted 12 pounds as a baby! WOW. His father worked as head cook for the American embassy, and Jackie is the only person I ever heard of who flunked out of first year of primary school. (hey finger painting is tough.) He trained for a decade in the Peking Opera and became part of the Seven Little Fortune acting group.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peking_Opera_School#The_Seven_Little_Fortunes
At the age of just eight years old he stared in his first film, Big and Little Wong Tin Bar; along with another well known actor Sammo Hung. he continued acting in small roles in films and even did one where there was no martial arts at all, All in the Family. That is the only one so far that he hasn’t done some kind of stunt work in.
Jackie Chan also has stated that he considers one of my old time favorite actors, Harold Loyd as one of his influences, and you can really see that in his films. oh one last bit of trivia for you. In 1976, his went to Dickson College and worked as a construction worker, where he gained the nick name “little Jack”. So that was where Jackie Chan was truly born I guess.
If you guys want to know more about him, and the good work his does for kids and charities, head over to:
I go there a lot, he is just a cool person.
Okay, I wanted to talk about the kid’s character in the film a bit; as I mentioned above. As I said they were all different from each other, all had different ideas, different needs, ect. But yet if you were to take all of that, and mixed it all up; you know what you’d get? You’d have a teenager. Seriously, everything addressed in there three kids, that is what makes up your kids. Which is why I think certain people in Hollywood and certain Vampire writers, just don’t get it. What we teens get is always stereotypes. What they need to do is, do more research, do your homework like grown ups always tell us. Want to know about kids? then don’t hire a lot of talking heads who have not been kids for years, as us. We will tell you. Just my two cents.
Anyway guys, check out this movie. It was a lot of fun and really good. I know when it comes out we will be buying it.
Have a great one!
Darcy
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