Spy comedy ‘Keeping Up With the Joneses’ is a mess
Convinced their suave new neighbors are spies, hopelessly square Jeff and Karen Gaffney (Zach Galifianakis, Isla Fisher) break into their house and, in the process, Jeff accidentally renders Karen unconscious with a tranquilizer dart.
He picks her up to carry her home.
You think, “He’s going to whack her head on the door frame.”
Seconds later, he whacks her head on the door frame.
Many people laugh, and the art of the movie comedy, which already has spent the past several years on life support, dies just a little bit more.
“Keeping Up With the Joneses,” a lazy, couples-centric version of this summer’s “Central Intelligence,” finds Tim and Natalie Jones (Jon Hamm, “Wonder Woman’s” Gal Gadot) moving into a quiet cul-de-sac populated by employees of a military-industrial corporation. They’re the most obvious undercover agents since Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase in “Spies Like Us.” They don’t even make an attempt to blend in.
Tim and Natalie bought the house, unseen, for cash and always, always look as though they just catwalked out of a fashion magazine. He passes himself off as a travel writer with all sorts of exotic stories. She introduces herself as a social media consultant, chef and aid worker. When he’s caught leaving Jeff’s den during a party, Tim acts as suspiciously as any teenager who’s ever slammed shut his laptop the moment his parents walked into his bedroom. And Natalie makes one of the least subtle information drops in film history.
Karen is immediately suspicious of their new neighbors, yet fussbudget Jeff thinks she’s overreacting — Seriously, how many times has this been used as a plot device? — until they sneak into the Joneses’ home, which for some reason has zero security measures in place, and find all sorts of spy tools.
From there, the Gaffneys are drawn into a dangerous operation involving stolen computer chips, teams of assassins and a mysterious villain code-named Scorpion. (The Scorpion reveal is one of the only things that really works in “Keeping Up With the Joneses,” so I won’t spoil it.)
Galifianakis has two modes: manic and subdued nerd. Here he goes with subdued nerd, a shade or two more masculine than the one he played in “The Campaign,” who has a love of Epcot, “The Good Wife” and words like “jeepers.” He’s a mess.
Then again, so is almost every frame of this seen-it-all-before misfire from director Greg Mottola (“Superbad”) and writer Michael LeSieur (“You, Me and Dupree”).
The real shame is that Hamm shows signs that he would be very good in a traditional spy movie.
Not that you should ever know that.
Instead, you should focus on keeping away from “Keeping Up With the Joneses.”
Contact Christopher Lawrence at clawrence@reviewjournal.com. On Twitter: @life_onthecouch.
Review
Movie: “Keeping Up With the Joneses”
Running time: 101 minutes
Rating: PG-13; sexual content, action/violence and brief strong language
Grade: D+
Now playing: At multiple locations
