Review: The Spy Next Door (with trailer)

By Nigel Powlson

JACKIE Chan may have a cheeky smile and an acrobatic set of martial arts skills but his best films have always seen him hide his limited talent behind a comedy co-star.

language limitations: Jackie Chan as Bob Ho in The Spy Next Door, in which he plays the role of a Chinese spy who is on secondment with the CIA. Below: Chan with Alina Foley as Nora, a precocious four-year-old.

It was Owen Wilson in Shanghai Noon, Chris Tucker in Rush Hour and Steve Coogan in Around The World in 80 Days. In these films he was the lovable stooge, often the butt of the jokes, who every so often would steal centre stage with a dazzling display of quickfire fighting.

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The mistake in The Spy Next Door is to place him solely at the heart of the film, where his struggle to master the basics of the English language seems more of a handicap than part of his charm.

Chan plays Bob Ho, a Chinese spy on secondment with the CIA who has helped bring a Russian bad guy called Poldark (Magnus Sheving) into custody. Bob has been posing as a pen importer and living next door to single mum Gillian (Amber Valetta) and her three kids.

Bob hasn't told the family his true identity but has decided to retire from the spy game and set up home with Gillian.

In order to bond with teenage Farren (Madeline Carroll), geeky Ian (Will Shadley) and precocious four-year-old Nora (Alina Foley), Bob agrees to look after the brood while Gillian flies out to the hospital bedside of a sick relative.

But Ian hacks into Bob's computer, downloads a secret programme and compromises the spy's cover. When Poldark escapes he now knows where to look for his arch enemy and doesn't care if the kids become collateral damage.

The Spy Next Door lands half-way between Arnold Schwarzenegger's Kindergarten Cop and the Home Alone films but although it manages the same rush of sentiment it can't match either for laughs.

Chan is at his best in slapstick action routines and they can, and do, sit well in a family film.

But his limited abilities away from the chop socky stuff are cruelly exposed and he's easily out-acted by the four-year-old. Chan needs someone with better comic instincts to share the limelight but instead of an Owen Wilson he only has Bill Ray Cyrus to work with. Even Hannah Montana struggles with that.

THE SPY NEXT DOOR

CERTIFICATE: PG

RUNNING TIME: 94 mins.

STARTS: Today at Showcase, Odeon and Cinema De Lux in Derby; Cineworld in Burton.

RATING: 2/5