'Back in Action' review: Cameron Diaz's return is welcome, but she needs better project than this

WHAT IT'S ABOUT Cameron Diaz makes her return to movies after more than 10 years away in this action comedy, in which she and Jamie Foxx play married former CIA spies who are pulled back into the old espionage life.

"Back in Action" begins with Emily (Diaz) and Matt (Foxx) deciding to hang it up after a near-death experience. Fifteen years later, they're parents to daughter Alice (McKenna Roberts), 14, and son Leo (Rylan Jackson), 12, driving a minivan, and doing the whole suburban thing. 

That's until they turn up in a viral video (don't ask), and get swept into unfinished drama surrounding one of those all-powerful MacGuffin devices that let you wreak whatever havoc your heart might desire, and only exist in the movies.

The director is Seth Gordon ("Horrible Bosses") and co-stars include Glenn Close, Andrew Scott ("Ripley") and Kyle Chandler.

MY SAY You shouldn't expect anything breathtakingly original out of a movie with a title as generic as "Back in Action."

But somehow the picture manages to disappoint even those lowered expectations by being as consistently bland as possible. There's not one thing in this movie that you have not  seen many, many times before.

That goes for the plot, in which Emily and Matt must activate their long dormant fighting and spying skills, which they do without showing even a little rust. It spans the generic villains, the haggling over the aforementioned device, which has the power to shut down the London power grid or whatever, and the uninspired action sequences.

Let's not forget the laugh- and drama-free scenes built around the kids' astonishment at their parents' "special set of skills," to borrow a line (sort of) from one of the countless movies of the past that have done this basic thing but better.

A movie so committed to going through the motions must offer some element of surprise, somehow, to distinguish itself. Close delivers a touch of that in a part that the movie takes great pains to not preemptively reveal, and so we won't here. The legend can go big and over-the-top with the best of them, and she infuses the movie with some desperately needed personality.

But she's on-screen relatively briefly. And while it's good to see Diaz, an underappreciated actor, back in the movies, the script does her no favors. Foxx gives off "I'm just here for the paycheck" vibes. 

To be fair, there's nothing particularly egregious about any of this. It just sort of sits there, doing what it does, before running out the clock. It's destined to join the likes of so many of its counterparts on Netflix, movies that you might barely remember with titles like "Red Notice" and "The Gray Man," sitting in a barren digital landscape, spending an eternity of being scrolled past in favor of the next new thing.

BOTTOM LINE Diaz's return is welcome, but she needs a better project.