TL;DR – This fascinatingly compelling series that took the essence of the film and then turned everything up to eleven while providing a slightly more plausible scenario.

Disclosure – I paid for the Amazon Prime service that viewed this series.

End Credit Scene – Infidelity & A Breakup have mid-credit scenes.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith Review –

If you are of my age, then you know about the cultural moment that was Mr. & Mrs. Smith even if you never watched the film. I did get to watch the movie at the time, and it was funny, entertaining, and incredibly hot. However, that was such a moment in pop culture history that, understandably, no one has attempted to take another stab at it before now. But after a troubled production, can the show reach the heights of where it came from? I would say yes. 

So to set the scene, we open in a small house in the middle of nowhere. It is here where John Smith (Alexander Skarsgard) and Jane Smith (Eiza Gonzalez Reyna) are enjoying a glass of wine until an unannounced car arrives and kills the both of them. Later, we see two anonymous people going through the application process to join an independent spy agency. This application process is about finding a compatible partner as well as seeing if they are a good fit for the agency. But as John (Donald Glover) and Jane (Maya Erskine) Smith settle into their new brownstone in New York, they soon discover just how intense this job can be. We will be looking at the season as a whole from here, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

Now, we need to start by exploring how Glover and Erskine work as a couple in this series, and can I say that they might be hotter? Part of that is because we get to see their whole relationship from start to finish, rather than diving into the point where they have a dull consistency, as in True Lies. We see their first introductions, crisis under fire, love becoming real, trying to make it work, the final fight, and then forced reconciliation. Each episode is another arc in their relationship, and it is fascinating. Part of that was despite this being a big spy film, the emotional beats feel like they are grounded in reality.

Part of how this works as well as it does is that you feel that their conversations are honest. In Double Date, the Smiths meet another pair of Smiths (Parker Posey & Úrsula Corberó) and have them over for dinner. The nervous energy and the want to impress while also trying to glean a touch more information about who they work for. You can feel that need to want to impress them, but I have to say, the cheese board is never too much. The back and forth felt like a real dinner party, just with the subtext of murder. It also makes the perfect juxtaposition for the end of the episode when it all falls apart, and we see the day and night of the world.

The focus of this series is more on the relationship between the two leads, up to and including a wonderful therapy episode that ends with them burning down the therapist’s office. But we do get several action sequences throughout the run time, though maybe not as much as people were expecting. The opening episode has a great chase sequence through New York that ends in a bang. I think my favourite was the car chase through the Italian countryside, and shout out to the Italian Tourism Board, who definitely got their money’s worth out of this series. Most of the final episode is one long battle in the house, which I liked if nothing else because it has a much more plausible narrative push to bring them to the conflict than the original film.

One thing that I really liked about Mr. & Mrs. Smith is how they have continued a trend that I have been seeing in recent works like Poker Face. Where you only have a small core cast, but this allows you to bring in some fantastic guest cast each week. Sharon Horgan & Billy Campbell made a wonderful married couple that maybe should not be married. Ron Perlman as the washed-up gangster well past his prime, and look, I am just here for whatever Parker Posey was doing in this series. Hell, we even get Beverly Glover playing Donald Glover’s mother, and it absolutely works. However, I will say that Paul Dano feels underused.

In the end, do we recommend Mr. & Mrs. Smith? Absolutely. I had a blast with this show and the ride from first meet-cute to final conflagration. The cast had amazing chemistry, which you absolutely need for a show like this. I do hope we get to see more of this going forward because that ending dramatically shifted where the show could go.  

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen Mr. & Mrs. Smith yet ?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.    

Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Directed by – Hiro Murai, Karena Evans, Christian Sprenger, Amy Seimetz & Donald Glover
Written by – Francesca Sloane, Donald Glover, Yvonne Hana Yi, Adamma Ebo, Adanne Ebo, Carla Ching, Stephen Glover & Schuyler Pappas
Created by – Francesca Sloane & Donald Glover
Based On – Mr. & Mrs. Smith by Simon Kinberg
Production/Distribution Companies – Big Indie Pictures, Gilga, Super Frog, Big Indie, Regency, Amazon MGM Studios & Amazon Prime.
Starring – Donald Glover & Maya Erskine with Alexander Skarsgard, Eiza Gonzalez Reyna, Tamara Torres, Paul Dano, John Turturro, Sharon Horgan, Billy Campbell, Parker Posey, Úrsula Corberó, Wagner Moura, Ron Perlman, Moise Morancy, Dontaé Hawkins, Rell Battle, Sarah Paulson, Dave Attell, Beverly Glover & Michaela Coel and Caleb Hearon, David Fierro, Candy Dato, Lauren B. Martin, Dominic Raacke, Eva Holzapfel, Aaron Kane, Tiziano Carnevale, Claudio Pacifico, Legend Glover & Magnus Mewville
Episodes Covered – First Date, Second Date, First Vacation, Double Date, Do You Want Kids?, Couples Therapy (Naked & Afraid), Infidelity & A Breakup