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'Mr. & Mrs. Smith': Married, with Uzis

You want to see a clever, dark comedy about a pair of married assassins who become each other's target? Then rent 1985's Prizzi's Honor, the last word on such lethal relationships.

Well, not the last word, because now there is Mr. & Mrs. Smith, the Brad Pitt-Angelina Jolie flick with a similar premise, but geared to the expectations and noise-tolerance levels of summer moviegoers.

Twentieth Century Fox 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith' C- The verdict: Married-assassins comedy gets bogged down in explosive action. Director: Doug Liman Starring: Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Efren Ramirez Run time: 116 minutes Release date: June 10, 2005 Rating: PG-13 for sequences of violence, intense action, sexual content and brief strong language. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate "Mr. & Mrs. Smith"   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

The idea of killer mates might have been a serviceable vehicle to exploit the alleged off-screen tabloid romance of its stars, if director Doug Limon (The Bourne Supremacy) were not more interested in seeing how much sustained gunfire and explosive havoc he could wreak.

The film begins promisingly enough with John (Brad) and Jane (Angie) Smith awkwardly answering the questions of their unseen marriage counselor. After five years — or is it six? — together, their feelings for each other have evaporated, as they explain to the therapist, a funny way to showcase two beautiful people said to be unable to keep their hands off each other once the cameras stop rolling.

You see, John and Jane work as hit people for rival covert agencies, unaware of what each other really does for a living. No doubt screenwriter Simon Kinberg (XXX: State of the Union) would claim that he intended this extreme situation as a metaphor for all marriages, in which none of us really knows our spouses. Perhaps, but he spends little time developing that notion before surrendering the movie to mind-numbing artillery and car crashes.

The commercial success of Mr. & Mrs. — reportedly budgeted at $100 million, with all of the money visible in gunfire and its wreckage — will be a referendum on the star power of Pitt and Jolie to deliver an audience regardless of the emptiness of the movie they are in.

Before the movie collapses under its own weight, there are a few worthy moments early on. Foreign agents John and Jane meet cute in the middle of a military insurgency in Bogota, Colombia, where they are forced to team up and bed down together to avoid suspicion.

Soon married, they live in a sleek, high-tech apartment, going their separate ways by day, when coincidence has them each assigned to snuff the same target. They botch the job but learn what each other really does to pay the bills. Warily, they continue to co-exist, until told to eliminate the other.

That is when you can stop paying attention and just watch the human video game, which concludes with most of the government gunning for both. As to the future of Pitt and Jolie together — onscreen and off — well, let's wait and see the opening week's box-office take.