Cameron Diaz retired for this?

On January 18, 2025By Littum

The generic title of the new Netflix action comedy Back in Action could refer to both the film’s pedestrian story and the completely unrelated reason people might be interested in seeing it. Our protagonists are Emily and Matt, two romantically involved CIA super-agents who retreat into anonymity due to Emily’s pregnancy, only to be drawn back into spy movie scams years later. But it’s all reminiscent of bits of better movies, including Kill Bill Vol. 2 and Mr. & Mrs. Smith. The real draw lies in who plays this in-from-the-cold couple: Cameron Diaz, coming out of a decades-long retirement from acting, and Jamie Foxx, largely out in 2024 after the stroke that delayed the production and release of Back in Action. In other words, two big movie stars have returned and teamed up for some popcorn entertainment. Too bad this particular piece of popcorn entertainment may not ultimately create as much excitement as Diaz and Foxx’s two previous films combined.

That the two previous Diaz/Foxx projects were a sports drama (Any Given Sunday) and a musical (the 2014 remake of Annie) may indicate why Back of Action’s subtext of glamorous professionals returning to what they do best to, falls a little flat. Yes, both stars appeared in their share of lightweight entertainment, like the winkingly cartoonish Charlie’s Angels or the caper-like Horrible Bosses (directed, like Back in Action, by Seth Gordon). But their eclectic careers haven’t been dominated by the kind of star-studded, instantly forgettable sorta-action-sorta-comedy that has abounded on streaming in recent years. (Think Red Notice, Ghosted, RPG, The Union and Argylle.)

These streaming spy movies all try to create a mix of escapism and laughs by juxtaposing cartoonish high-tech espionage with dreary everyday life. Back in Action is more adept at portraying the latter as the couple struggles with their tech-savvy younger son Leon (Rylan Jackson) and especially their rebellious older daughter Alice (McKenna Roberts). Emily is the more overprotective parent while Matt does his best to stay laid back, a dynamic the two stars play with an easy, friendly chemistry. They’re endearingly believable in a sitcom kind of way, and it’s refreshing to see the once-indomitable secret weapon of Diaz’s megawatt charm—her signature sun-kissed grin—fail to penetrate the armor of a relentless teenager.

When the couple’s old boss (Kyle Chandler) reappears looking for a long-lost McGuffin (one of those digital universal keys that can unlock everything on the web and so on), pursued by a group of nefarious henchmen, the family must go on the run This prompts Gordon and co-writer Brendan O’Brien to do a whole lot of clumsily directed chases and fights, the latter repeatedly scoring musty pop hits as a sort of jokeless running gag. Like other streaming spy movies, Back in Action aspires to Bondian globe-trotting and ends up with a meager selection of greenscreen-friendly locations: suburban Atlanta, a gas station at night, and a generic mansion to name three. The climax hits the Tate Modern in London, but only briefly.

Early on, in moments where violent self-defense seems to unlock something Emily and Matt repressed during parenthood, Back in Action seems poised to unpack the idea that enjoying this kind of work involves a degree of sociopathy . But Gordon and co-writer Brendan O’Brien don’t seem interested in anything so thorny, and so their characters’ ass-kicking is quickly recategorized as purely righteous. The chaos is so frictionless that it seems to go completely unnoticed. Endless machine gun rounds are fired through a suburban neighborhood in broad daylight. A car chase minutes later sends vehicles soaring through the air. Matt uses a gas pump as a flamethrower in full view of several civilians and no one ever bats an eye or alerts the authorities.

Back in Action doesn’t go for naturalism, but the interchangeable locations and vacuum-sealed action make the film feel smaller without leaving room for it to be more fun. The best stuff in its second half involves Nigel (Jamie Demetriou), a bumbling MI6 trainee who has teamed up with Emily’s estranged ex-spy mother, played by Glenn Close. Nigel’s open-hearted enthusiasm has a silly originality that the rest of the characters conspicuously lack as they learn predictable lessons about parent-child understanding. Far from a window into an exotic world of deficits and life-or-death stakes (or any analogs in the lives of Hollywood A-listers like Diaz and Foxx), the algorithmically generated plot points and robotic sequel-seeding of Back in Action wind feels like another day at the corporate offices.

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