Akiva Goldsman, only days ago rumored to be the director of “Paranormal Activity 2” (he won’t be helming, but executive producing instead) has found his feature film directorial debut in the shape of “Man & Wife.”
The film tells “the story of a seemingly ordinary husband who’s actually a professional hit man (and what happens as his wife begins to suspect something is amiss).” Does that sound familiar? There’s the forthcoming “Killers” with Ashton Kutcher and Katharine Heigl, there’s “Knight & Day” with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz (which is pretty much the same concept in slightly different clothing) and on yeah, “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” which Goldsman also happened to produce. The spec script was written by Alan McElroy (“Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever,” “Tekken”) so don’t expect anything remotely watchable.
We don’t think we need to reiterate Goldsman’s CV highlights — “Batman & Robin,” “Batman Forever” — but he has a tendency to squander great concepts with bad ideas (please refer to the ending of “I Am Legend”). The one silver lining is that the film runs in the opposite direction of being original, to being dated even before it starts rolling. At least its a straightforward concept that Goldsman can’t fuck up. Right?
