Starring: Chris Pine, Reese Witherspoon, Tom Hardy
Plot: When CIA spies and super friends FDR (Chris Pine) and Tuck (Tom Hardy) discover they’re dating the same girl Lauren, they resort to using all their super secret agent know-how to outdo each other in a wild and explosive bid to win the girl.
TM Rating: The other new English language movie this week, Chronicle (Grand Central Cinemas, 3.30pm daily) is a better movie than This Means War. The story about three teenage friends developing super hero powers after coming into contact with a mysterious substance in the woods is fresher, original and genuinely surprising. But a hi-concept studio film like This Means War is going to have more mainstream appeal.
On paper it sounds like it could be a cringe-athon of a movie. Let’s take three attractive leads, have the two guys get up to all sorts of shenanigans in order to win the hot chick, but for fun let’s make them spies. That way audiences get a chick flick and spy thriller rolled into one. The concept smacks of studio suits rubbing their hands together with glee.
It sounds awful… but with Chris Pine playing a cocky earth based version of Captain Kirk, Reese Witherspoon high-heeling a fine line between being likeable to women and hot enough to make two men cause havoc and Tom Hardy playing a sensitive loner with a hard edged exterior, the chemistry between the unlikely ménage à trois carries the movie through all its outrageous scenarios.
Throw a heinous villain and gadgets galore into the action and what you get is a fast paced, exciting and funny film that successfully combines rom-com with a hi-octane action movie.
7/10 ““ It’s a load of nonsense but the characters are likeable and it’s as slick as an Armani suit, This Means War is escapist fun that is actually a lot better than it sounds.
Screening Times: Gran Sur Cinema, 5.15 daily until 22nd March 2012
Other English language movies on Tenerife
John Carter continues at the Zentral Center in Playa de las Américas at 5.10pm daily, 12.30 on Saturday and Sunday
Tickets: €6.50 Buy Your Tickets Here
