Critics can't get enough of new TV series based on Mr. & Mrs. Smith
When a new show is released on Netflix, Disney+ or Amazon Prime Video, you know the drill. It's time to see what percentage its scoring online and whether it's worth the precious spare time we have.
We're talking IMDb, Metacritic, and Rotten Tomatoes. We might as well bookmark them because it's only a matter of time until we head back.
Well, those checking out a brand new show on Prime Video today (2 February) will be in luck, as it is leaving critics well and truly impressed.
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Starring Donald Glover and Maya Erskine in leading roles, it's a new TV show based off of a 2005 film starring Hollywood heavyweights Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. The TV show also stars Sarah Paulson, Ron Perlman, and Alexander Skarsgard.
Fleabag star Phoebe Waller-Bridge had originally been cast in the new show's leading female role but exited over creative differences with Glover.
Back in 2005, the off-screen story took the headlines at the time, with Pitt and Jolie saying they fell for each other while filming the movie. Pitt famously got divorced from Friends star Jennifer Aniston around the same time.
In the 2005 film, Pitt and Jolie appear as a standard upper-middle-class married couple.
They then find out that they're both assassins belonging to competing agencies, both tasked with the job of killing the other.
The film is Mr. & Mrs. Smith and it's a title that has also been given to the new Prime Video series loosely based off of the same premise.
Things are a little different for Glover and Erskine. Watch the trailer below:
They're two spies are paired up together to impersonate a married couple, known as John and Jane Smith (the same character names as Pitt and Jolie).
What follows is shoot outs, explosions, and a personal story between the two main characters that comes across as charming and real due to those playing the roles.
Their chemistry really is important to the show being a success; which it instantly is, according to critics.
Over on Rotten Tomatoes, Mr. & Mrs. Smith holds a rather lovely 91 per cent rating with the experts.
Dave Nemetz, of TV Line, said: "Erskine is fantastic in this, making a sizzling pair with Glover in a funny, breezy reimagining that’s half action-packed spy games and half cute rom-com, and equally adept at both halves."
Nick Hilton, of the Independent, said it is a brilliant take on the 'nonsensical' Pitt and Jolie film.
He wrote: "For a show about two super spies, based on a nonsensical Brangelina thriller, it is remarkable for its honest, relatable depiction of a relationship between two disaffected millennials."
And Alan Sepinwall, from Rolling Stone, said: "It cleverly inverts the movie’s premise.
"It blends the best elements of retro TV and modern TV, and deftly balances the ridiculousness of the core idea with the danger of it."
Mr & Mrs Smith runs for eight episodes, with it available to watch on Amazon Prime Video.
Topics: TV and Film, Amazon, Amazon Prime, Celebrity, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie
Tom Earnshaw