If we have to recycle old IP, Mr. & Mrs. Smith is the way to do it

Have you ever watched Mr. & Mrs. Smith, the 2005 Brad-and-Angelina motion comedy, not too long ago? Like, truly watched it, not simply let your nostalgic recollections of it play in your head. Mr. & Mrs. Smith was at the middle of popular culture in the mid-aughts for lots of causes that had nothing to do with the precise film, and some that did: It’s attractive enjoyable with huge stars, and director Doug Liman is aware of how to put collectively motion scene. The elevator pitch — two skilled assassins are married to one another, however don’t learn about the different’s job — is one.

However proper now, in 2024, it’s virtually unwatchably unusual. It’s a kind of not-that-old films which might be so particular to their time they appear to have aged past their years. The bitter, marriage-is-hell humor lands fallacious. The 2 leads look scorching however type of unreal, like they’re the untimely product of de-aging expertise. There are some iffy digital pictures, and the cinematography and digital camera work — all handheld, all high-contrast, all orange and teal, all the time — are extraordinarily 2005. It’s simply not a movie that performs anymore, and though it was an enormous hit and the eye of a tabloid storm, it’s not a lot talked about immediately.

Which makes it an odd alternative to be tailored right into a Prime Video streaming collection. Or perhaps it doesn’t. Perhaps, the truth is, the alternative by star Donald Glover and co-creator Francesca Sloane is a genius one.

In the present part of the streaming wars (a part we is likely to be on the precipice of abandoning, however that’s one other story), the studios have not been shaken of their perception that any stage of mental property title recognition is higher than none, and creatives have been barraged with invites to rework this or that old film. Very not often, as in the unbelievable success of Noah Hawley’s Fargo, an anthology collection made in the spirit of the Coen brothers’ cinematic masterpiece, this has labored. Extra usually it has not. Generally, the misbegotten outcomes have at the very least been attention-grabbing, like Amazon’s curious reinterpretation of Lifeless Ringers. Generally, as in the case of the uninspired retread of Deadly Attraction, they have been each pointless and boring.

Glover and Sloane’s impressed alternative was to choose a film from the studios’ menu that is well-known however unsophisticated and never particularly beloved, with a dated iconography that might simply be junked and a robust idea that could possibly be stripped to its core and rebuilt utterly from scratch. This is precisely what they’ve completed, creating a pleasant collection that is virtually the inverse of its inspiration, whereas sharing its core values: It’s humorous, attractive, shiny, and thrilling, and constructed round the chemistry of its two leads.

The setup is markedly totally different. Somewhat than rival assassins who acquired hitched by chance, Glover and Maya Erskine’s John and Jane Smith have been purposefully paired up by the identical shadowy employer, shedding their earlier lives to start a brand new one collectively. The place Pitt and Jolie start the movie as flawless professionals trapped in home tedium, Glover and Erskine are awkward, hesitant newbies exploring their harmful new occupation and budding relationship collectively.

This units up a present that is a frivolously spiced, well-observed tackle modern work and relationships with a facet order of covert-ops hijinks. It’d take viewers a few episodes to alter to Mr. & Mrs. Smith’s distinctive world. It’s intimate and chatty, with an off-the-cuff method to the motion stuff that isn’t involved with realism or plausibility, and always lowers the dramatic temperature and the stakes, at the same time as the Smiths become involved in more and more outlandish mission-of-the-week eventualities. It’s a cool, easygoing relationship dramedy about individuals who simply occur to be elite contract brokers (but in addition gig staff, form of). That’s not to say it doesn’t ship thrills — there are some shut scrapes, and one later episode set on Lake Como has an impressive protracted chase scene — however it’s simple to inform the place Glover and Sloane’s curiosity actually lies: The motion is as broad-brush and goofy as the Smiths’ dialogue is believable, intricate, and nifty in its element.

Photograph: David Lee/Prime Video

Photograph: David Lee/Prime Video

Mr. & Mrs. Smith — in contrast to the cinematically formidable Fargo present, for instance, which Sloane labored on, in addition to contributing to Glover’s Atlanta — is additionally underneath no illusions about what medium it belongs to. This is very a lot a TV present. It has slick, aspirational visuals, with beautiful location shoots round New York and Europe, good-looking structure, and funky vogue (Glover’s seems are on level). However the scale is small, and the 40-minute episodes are tight, discrete, satisfying brief tales. Every one strikes the Smiths’ relationship on whereas pairing them with a string of one-off visitor stars, usually as the couple’s mission goal. It’s a assassin’s row of iconic actors: John Turturro, Sharon Horgan, Parker Posey, Ron Perlman, Sarah Paulson, Paul Dano, Michaela Coel, and extra. Perlman is magnificent as a mournful, infantile oligarch with a killer Hitler joke, whereas Paulson supplies a savagely correct parody of a {couples} therapist.

This is only a nice TV format, and in principle Mr. & Mrs. Smith might run ceaselessly like this; it’s harking back to Poker Face in the way it seeks to rehabilitate old-school case-of-the-week TV. Glover, nonetheless, likes to play video games with type, as with Altanta — albeit to a a lot much less experimental extent on this case. Mr. & Mrs. Smith is only some episodes old earlier than it begins to break its personal format. It’s cunningly completed, however it maybe doesn’t depart Glover and Sloane with a number of room to maneuver in a possible second season.

Maybe, although, that’s as a result of Mr. & Mrs. Smith’s major motivator is John and Jane’s relationship, and it’s important to the drama that this retains transferring ahead. Glover and Erskine are merely irresistible: likable, concurrently spiky and clean, broken however competent (up to some extent), and really plausibly into one another. Their scenes collectively radiate with the comfortingly bitchy intimacy of two people who find themselves inseparable companions in completely every little thing, and when issues go fallacious between them, the present’s insouciant floor cracks sufficient to expose actual damage.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a enjoyable little bit of escapism wrapped round a fancy, heat, and relatable love story. Glover and Sloane made one thing new and refreshing out of a film that is previous its sell-by date. If we’re solely allowed to watch new issues primarily based on different, older issues, we’ll be fortunate if a fraction of them are made with as a lot wit and creativity as this.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith is streaming now on Prime Video.