“Back in Action” (2025) Review

I hate how old Back in Action feels. It’s not just that this action-comedy makes dated references, but pulls dated genre tropes straight off the shelf without even a dusting. Here is a film loaded with action sequences juxtaposed with eccentric jukebox hits, parents struggling to conceal their spy nature from their kids, routine code heists, and egregious product placement. The result is an empty-headed action adventure that ups the commercially-safe game of Netflix’s most forgettable of pictures.

There’s little appeal to the loving spy couple of Matt (Jamie Foxx) and Emily (Cameron Diaz). After a botched mission, they decide to go into hiding to settle down and have a family in suburbia with their two kids. One would think they’d choose a more sheltered life in a small rural down given their reputation, but then we wouldn’t get all the standard suburban dysfunctions. It probably wouldn’t be as relatable for upper-middle-class audiences if this family unit was seen using Amazon products in the wilderness. It’s hard to ignore how much money Amazon threw into this movie, considering the ad-supported tier of Netflix starts with an ad for Amazon Fire TV, has the characters speaking openly about buying stuff off Amazon, and then (less than five minutes later) brings up Amazon’s Alexa. Even in the realm of movies that contain product placement, this is just piggish.

Years later, Matt and Emily have to go on the run when they become targeted by mercenaries. The parents continue to lie to their kids about being spies, despite being awful at that task before they were being shot at in their own home. It’s not until they’re well into their trip to England and fight off a few more assassins that the parents come clean about their true identity. They also learn that their grandmother (Glenn Close) is a spy training an eccentric novice (Jamie Demetriou). There isn’t much fun to be had with this scenario, fulfilling all of the expected beats amid scenes of shootouts and punchouts, all with a soundtrack so boastful of eccentric music I craved a little classical orchestra if only to mix it up a little.

The plot is a whole lot of nothing. Kyle Chandler plays a double agent who is trying to attain digital access to London’s infrastructure that could decimate Europe. His motivations are incredibly dumb, as he desires to sell off the world’s security to terrorists because he lost his job and needs the money. Look, the economy sucks, but I’m pretty sure there are better ways to make some money than launching an incredibly elaborate operation to deceive the CIA and take control of London. A better film might’ve mocked this motivation while acknowledging that it’s at least not as bad as being bitter about Europe, but that would require some cleverness and cunning that this film simply doesn’t have.

Back in Action is bland in motion. There’s never a moment of comedy that doesn’t feel stale, action that doesn’t feel routine, or commercialism that doesn’t taste launch you out of the fiction like a rocket-powered ejection seat. This is PG-13 junk built for the family who wants to watch an action-adventure and there’s literally nothing else to watch. For the parents struggling to find that picture for movie night, you can do way better than a film where Foxx and Diaz try to convince youngsters that they’re not baby boomers.