Back in Action Review: Cameron Diaz Action Film Stuck in the Past

Cameron Diaz Is Eternally Young, but Back in Action Is Stuck in the Past

Listen to this article

I can’t help but wonder what exactly it was about the screenplay–or the paycheck–for Seth Gordon’s Netflix action comedy Back in Action that convinced an A-lister like Cameron Diaz to put what had stretched into being an 11-year big screen retirement on hold. Certainly, there’s nothing unique or particularly novel or engaging in that script, nothing that should have jumped out at her as a project that demanded to be made. The woman certainly isn’t Oscar-fishing here. Surely, in the past decade and change, a performer like Diaz has been offered myriad opportunities to return to Hollywood in major roles, but she resisted them all until now … in order to play a part barely any different from the same kind of broad, studio action comedy fare she specialized in throughout the early 2000s, in Charlie’s Angels and beyond. It’s a bit like her intent is to act as if zero time has passed in the last two decades, and Back in Action is much the same in its approach–a dated and unambitious, but technically proficient action flick with decent leads but not a ton for them to do.

This sort of unambitious malaise and pedestrian workmanship seems to have become a frequent stumbling block for mid-budget streaming features of this nature, and Back in Action in particular feels oddly constrained by budget, as if there was barely money available to make a film after divvying up funds between its recognizable cast members, who also include Jamie Foxx, Glenn Close, Kyle Chandler and Andrew Scott. This underfunded impression comes across as a pinched and small-stakes reliance on more intimate action scenes than the audience might expect from a would-be blockbuster-style premise starring the likes of Diaz and Foxx. It wants to look expensive, to look gaudy, but the money just isn’t up there on the screen. The closest thing to a genuinely “big” action setpiece–accomplished largely through garish CGI–is shoved into the first 10 minutes, perhaps in an effort to dissuade the audience from feeling like they’re subsequently being shortchanged.

Most Popular

The Back in Action premise was no doubt pitched as “Mr. And Mrs. Smith with kids,” and that’s the easiest way to get it across: Diaz and Foxx play Emily and Matt (no time for last names!), two former CIA spies/secret agents who go off the grid together after kindling a romance and becoming pregnant. The opening 15 minutes, set “15 years ago,” establishes their super spy/human weapon credentials, although it’s understandably a little difficult to accept 52-year-old Cameron Diaz as … 37-year-old Cameron Diaz, when she would have been fresh off the oddly similar Knight and Day. If anything, her styling makes her look younger when the action snaps 15 years forward, to when the married duo have two kids: Rebellious 14-year-old Alice (McKenna Roberts) and brightly amiable younger brother Leo (Rylan Jackson). Don’t expect any more adjectives describing those kids; I’ve already used up every bit of characterization assigned to them.

Rest assured, this is a film about Diaz and Foxx proving that they’re still toned and viable enough to kick some ass, and in that capacity Back in Action is actually pretty successful. The stunt work and choreography are both quite slick, seamlessly incorporating those A-list faces and their stunt doubles, and thankfully not being entirely possessed by the kind of hyperactive editing that renders many modern action scenes outside of the likes of the John Wick franchise as the visual equivalent of a grand mal seizure. When the two are clotheslining goons and breaking backs, Back in Action comes to life in bursts of delight, being surprisingly tactile in the thud of a fist dug into a crumpled midsection. With that said, those action sequences are often taking place in relatively humble locales–a gas station, a hallway, etc.–rather than being worked into bigger and bolder set pieces with higher stakes, as they would be in the films this one is emulating. There’s even a setup for a Winter Soldier-style elevator fight scene that simply cuts to the aftermath as Diaz and Foxx depart a group of slumped bodies. Would writer-director Gordon say that this is intended for comic effect, a subversion of a fight scene we’ve seen several other times in recent memory? I’m sure he would, but that doesn’t stop it from simultaneously feeling like a Netflix cost-saving decision, disguised as a punchline.

Worse still is the flagrant use of embarrassing licensed music through almost all of these action sequences, a motley collection of painfully on-the-nose vintage love tunes and swing numbers that range from Etta James’ “At Last,” to Dean Martin’s “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head,” to James Brown’s “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” all designed to offer some kind of faux humorous contrast to each shootout or pummeling. It’s an exceptionally tired trope that feels like the worst kind of subservience to Kingsman-style sequel convention, ironic in nothing but the audience’s disbelief that this could still register as fresh to anyone. The songs could perhaps even be excused if they were worked into the characters of Diaz and Foxx–their own personal soundtrack or love language, etc.–but the musical taste of the characters is instead depicted as favoring ‘80s and ‘90s hip-hop, ‘ala Salt-n-Pepa’s “Push It,” making the likes of Dean freakin’ Martin feel even more inorganically incorporated. Would that they could have allocated some of these music licensing dollars toward things that Back in Action could actually have used, like squibs and explosions, or coffee for a sleepy Andrew Scott, playing an underutilized MI6 agent pursuing the pair.

It’s a shame, because beyond the solid action choreography there’s a fine patter and repartee throughout between Diaz and Foxx, a sense of easy familiarity, even though Foxx’s father character feels like he’s being written as more of a geek than the ever-suave Jamie Foxx can reasonably convey. The kids, on the other hand, are really an afterthought–the film strings out the big reveal that their parents are secret agents seemingly forever, and then has no intention of letting them in on the action, even after it lets them in on the truth. Spy Kids this ain’t, and Back in Action misses any opportunity to bring the entire family together and unite them in some kind of physical capacity. And no, I’m not counting the inexplicable few minutes of a soccer match we witness at the end of the film (or the galling sequel setup) as uniting the family in the context of an action scene.

Back in Action functions modestly well as a welcome back to the screen for Cameron Diaz, who is still capable of being as charming today as she ever may have been. It even functions decently well as an action movie for the specific, too-narrow frames of time where Diaz and Foxx are thrashing wave after wave of nameless mooks–whoever the choreographer and stunt coordinators are here, they’ve done the heaviest lifting of anyone on the project. But the film feels absolutely threadbare in all other dimensions, not even trusting its audience to appreciate the solid fisticuffs it’s bringing to the party and seemingly believing that viewers in 2025 need a little James Brown in order to register that an action scene is meant to have an ironic undercurrent. Ending a retirement after 11 years, with this as the rationale? Perhaps it would have been better to continue laying low.

Director: Seth Gordon
Writers: Seth Gordon, Brendan O’Brien
Stars: Cameron Diaz, Jamie Foxx, Glenn Close, Kyle Chandler, Andrew Scott, McKenna Roberts, Rylan Jackson, Jamie Demetriou
Release date: Jan. 17, 2025 (Netflix)

Jim Vorel is Paste’s Movies editor and resident genre geek. You can follow him on Twitter or on Bluesky for more film writing.

Cameron Diaz Is Eternally Young, but Back in Action Is Stuck in the Past