FILM REVIEW: This Means War

   

       This Means War (12A) directed by McG, the man behind Charlie’s Angels, has the action-romcom down 

       to a tee. It is over the top, silly and predictable.

       The film follows CIA operatives and best friends FDR (Chris Pine) and Tuck (Tom Hardy) who fall into

        a ridiculous love triangle with Lauren (Reese Witherspoon) who is unaware that the two men she is 

        leading on know each other.

      Did their scripts get mixed up in the post? Hardy, who plays the sweet, sensitive Tuck, is best known for 

      his ‘hard man’ role in Layer Cake while Pine, who plays smooth talking lady’s man FDR, plays Kirk in 

      Star Trek and romantic roles in Just my luck and The princess diaries. Perhaps they would have been better

      suited playing each other’s roles.

      It was all too repetitive and familiar. There’s the infamous microphone scene – previously seen on St 

      Trinian’s – where Pine tries to impress Witherspoon with his knowledge about artist, Gustav Klimt, which 

      to our surprise his microphone disconnects and he mishears the information leading to a technological 

      disaster.

      It is worrying that the highlight of the film was watching ditzy Witherspoon dancing around in her kitchen 

      to, Montell Jordan’s “This is how we do it,” whilst being spied on by the boys.

      The film deserves 3/5 – the short action scene at the beginning for the boys and the comical love triangle 

      for the girls makes it the perfect date film. Just don’t watch it expecting to see something new.