PREMIERE.COM'S REVIEW (posted 6/9/05)

Domestic abuse has never been more fun than Mr. & Mrs. Smith, in which undercover man and wife Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (who discover they're actually rival assassins) attempt to expedite the moment at which death do them part. Where shouting seems to work just fine for other couples, these two solve their problems with rocket launchers and heavy artillery, making The War of the Roses look like a simple playground misunderstanding by comparison.

Not to be confused with the TV series of the same name (which paired Scott Bakula and Maria Bello as sham-marriage secret agents) or the like-titled Alfred Hitchcock movie (an out-of-character screwball comedy that has absolutely nothing to do with espionage), Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a throwback to all those high-concept blockbusters that defined the '80s. Lucky for us, it's so breezily managed by Simon Kinberg's script that you never give the movie's central coincidence a second thought. I mean, how dumb do these two super-spies need to be not to suspect each other's cover stories?

The movie opens with the Smiths in couples therapy. It seems the spark has gone out of their marriage (and no wonder — the movie never convincingly explains what these two globetrotting killers could possibly see in their suburban alter egos). Of course, all that's about to change. For the first hour or so, the movie, much like its frustrated lead characters, doesn't quite know what to do with the marriage, but once the Smiths discover one another's secret identities, the film really hits its stride.

Action is what Doug Liman does best (see Go and The Bourne Identity), and even though reports suggest he needed a little help from second-unit director Simon Crane, there's no denying that Mr. & Mrs. Smith features some of the best fight and chase footage you'll see all summer. The key is that the movie uses the action as more than just background noise. The dynamic between the two characters is constantly changing, and the action sequences give them a chance to work out some of their aggression issues. Any two-bit writer could've cooked up those therapy scenes, but only Kinberg could've managed the argument that punctuates their high-speed minivan chase. Whatever the tabloids say, it helps that there's some genuine sizzle between Brad and Angelina. By the time the couple is facing down a private army inside a Home Depot-style megastore, fans'll be rooting for the marriage to last.—Peter Debruge