Netflix’s Back In Action, the first film starring Cameron Diaz since 2014, has received a mixed reception from critics after its debut on the service.
Reviews have mostly praised the chemistry between the Charlie’s Angels actor and co-star Jamie Foxx, but criticise the lacklustre storytelling.
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The pair star as two former CIA spies drawn back into their old ways when their identities are revealed. On the day of the film’s release (January 17), the film has a score of 50 on review aggregator Metacritic (indicating “Mixed or Average” reviews), while on Rotten Tomatoes is has a “Rotten” score of 26 per cent from 23 reviews.
Paste Magazine’s review described it as “a dated and unambitious, but technically proficient action flick with decent leads but not a ton for them to do”. Critic Jim Vorel later pondered: “Ending a retirement after 11 years, with this as the rationale? Perhaps it would have been better to continue laying low”.
In a two-star review for The Guardian, Benjamin Lee wrote: “As it stands, the mostly rather rote Back in Action is best seen as just an excuse to watch Diaz act again, and she’s as charming as she always has been, especially alongside Foxx, with whom she shares a comfortable chemistry”. He said of Diaz’s return: “One hopes this is just what Diaz needed to get warmed up again Back in Action takes her back in time”.
More positive notes celebrated the disposable nature of the movie, with The Telegraph’s Robbie Collin writing: “[It’s] the sort of three-star film made for those times at which only a three-star film will do”.
The Hollywood Reporter’s review felt a degree of nostalgia from the film, with David Rooney writing: “Movies like this — starry, frothy, cute, harmless — used to turn up regularly at the multiplex” before saying: “If this is the streaming universe’s attempt to fill that gap, with marquee talent serving as a distraction from often preposterous plotting and an over-qualified supporting cast to class it up, we could do worse”.
Back In Action may be Diaz’s first film in over a decade, but it won’t be her last. Last summer, it would be confirmed she would be returning alongside her co-stars for a fifth Shrek film. Recently, she also spoke about why she retired, saying: “It felt like something I had to do to reclaim my own life”.
There is one genre she is unwilling to return to, however, saying in an interview this week that she would not return to romantic comedies: “no more rom-coms, only mom-coms”.
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