Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl beat Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz in the summer race to the Mr. & Mrs. Smith box-office derby, but Killers, with Tom Selleck in a supporting role as Heigl’s nebbishly over-protective father, feels like a pilot for a 1980s television series rather than a would-be summer action comedy.
Heigl has a history with director Robert Luketic (The Ugly Truth), but it's one that should have given her pause as she considered re-upping for a second tour of duty with him. This ill-conceived mess can’t quite figure out if it wants to be a romantic comedy, a suburban satire or an action adventure, so it throws up its hands and shrugs off any of those genres.
Why settle for one solid approach or even a smart mix of styles when you can tread the path of least resistance and fail to make any impression at all? It's a bold and daring choice, if you consider the expense in these dire financial times.
It shows real disdain, the kind that should inspire a Congressional hearing. But maybe audience indifference at the box office will get Killers cancelled once and for all. Grade: D-
Opens June 4. Check out theaters and show times, see the trailer and get theater details here.
