What is it good for? Not a fat lot
I didn’t know much about This Means War beforehand, beyond the fact it has Tom Hardy and Chris Pine as two spies fighting for the affections of Reese Witherspoon (understandably so tbf). So when, after a brain-numbing 90 minutes, the dread words “Directed by McG” appeared as the credits rolled, this explained an awful lot. In fairness to our preposterously-pseudonymed friend, the overriding impression here is of a film that’s been focus-grouped to death, with every last drop of originality wrung out of each ploddingly obvious scene, which isn’t all his fault. The horrible, hyperactive cartoon aesthetic though most definitely is. Why on earth do you need so many jump cuts, especially in scenes which are basically two blokes chatting? Why are some angles randomly shot on grainy film? Why does everything feel like it was shot by an ADD afflicted five year-old? Funnily enough, the camera tends to sit still during scenes with Witherspoon and Chelsea Handler, playing the standard romcom