Mr. & Mrs. Smith

I fell victim to the marketing ploys of this show and was excited for this show to be released, watching most of the series the day it was released.

It is well made and had a good production value. Well shot and for the most part well acted. But I find the subject matter to be dull and the writing to be a bit lazy.

This is a spy show that is missing all of the quintessential "spy things" found in the genre. First off, the characters are basically Craigslist Kirkland-brand spies. They are not very good at their jobs and they are following the orders of a chat-GTP style entity. Also, the series is episodic, so they are in a new location doing a new task every episode. This is okay, but 90% of the episode is spent examining their relationship, while 10% is spent doing a few spy things.

All of the realism in this show is spent on relationship building. It's like a committee sat down and wrote a standard rom com using fights, quirks, and highlights from all of their previous relationships and packages them into a show. Needing a hook, they threw in a few lazily-written spy scenes to match it watchable.

I'm being a bit harsh here. The series is somewhat enjoyable and the relationship scenes are pretty well executed and well thought out. But if you are looking for an espionage/spy show with any sort of realism, this isn't it. This is a show about the fake marriage between two people that just happen to be spies.

You can tell Mr. & Mrs. Smith was created by Donald Glover because it has the same feel as Atlanta. They shouldn't have called this Mr. & Mrs. Smith though. I think that's why some people left negative reviews because it doesn't resemble the movie at all. I think the people who didn't like it would've liked it more if they called it something else because they went into it expecting the story to be along the same lines of the movie. It's not. It doesn't make it bad though. Both Donald Glover and Maya Erksine were fantastic in this. They have such natural chemistry. This show has plenty of drama, action, comedy, etc to keep you entertained.

I watched all 8 episodes and found them to have the same sentiment as the original movie but with a ton more depth. And also what I thought was better acting, Donald and Maya took every episode and put their full acting strength behind it to give each episode a familiar piece of life with some crazy action involved too. Some of the mid episodes definitely just felt like fillers and since we had the general plot going we didn't feel as we had to watch every second to get the gist. Now to the ending, DIDN'T LIKE, why with 8 full episodes would the series runners leave it on a cliffhanger... not appreciated and made me have mixed feelings toward the entire series. Boo.

I had an absolute blast watching Mr. & Mrs. Smith. I just binged all 8 episodes over the weekend and it was such a fun show it flew by. This is both a good spy thriller and a good rom-com. Donald Glover and Maya Erksine are both terrific as the leads and every episode has guest stars from other well known actors. It had Alexander Skarsgard, Eiza Gonzalez, Paul Dano, John Turturro, Ron Perlman, Ursula Corbero, Sarah Paulson, Wagner Moura, Parker Posey, among others. Each episode was a different adventure and they were all fun to watch. Glover and Erksine star as John and Jane Smith. Two loners who are put together to work as spies for a mysterious organization.

After seeing the low ratings for this show, I couldn't help but think, "Oh no, not another disappointment." However, since I'm a fan of espionage-themed TV shows and movies, and having enjoyed the film, I felt compelled to give this TV series a chance. And, I'm glad I did. While the movie leaned heavily on the sex appeal of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, this rendition of Mr. & Mrs. Smith excels in both acting and writing. With only 8 episodes, building a story arc with substantial depth is no easy feat. Yet, this series manages it admirably. Each episode is fun to watch, and it's evident that the cast relished portraying these deadly characters. Although it was seemingly written as a limited series, I'm really hoping for a second season.