I think we all died, just a little, when we first heard about The Spy Next Door.  Seriously, we moaned, staring at those godawful trailers…what happened to Jackie Chan’s career?  Where is the awesome that we got in Forbidden Kingdom, watching him FINALLY take on Jet Li and reveal what we already subconsciously knew–that two massive clouds of awesome slamming into each other is not a fight to be won but an experience to be relished.

But as I discovered when the folks out at Lions Gate sent me a copy of The Spy Next Door to review, seldom can a movie really be judged by a trailer.

The Spy Next Door follows Bob Ho, a suburban man who’s the very picture of “settled down”.  And he’s dating an attractive single mother…but the kids don’t like him very much.  Thus when an opportunity arises for Bob to help out by watching the kids for a weekend, he jumps at the chance.  The only problem, of course, is that Bob Ho is one of the best spies on the face of the earth.  And when his job comes back to haunt him in the midst of the babysitting action, Bob has to spring back into action, with three kids in tow.  Will they survive the weekend?  Stay tuned!

What I believe we all forgot, especially when we were concerned, is that that it’s impossible for Jackie Chan to not be awesome.  Even if everything else around him sucks, no matter how sad and derivative it is, Jackie Chan will still be awesome.  Much like Brad Dourif or Lance Henriksen or William H. Macy, it doesn’t matter how horrible what’s going on around them is, it always ends the same.

Admittedly, The Spy Next Door is no great shakes.  It’s a lot like other comedies we’ve seen, but when you add Jackie Chan into this particular mix, this isn’t so much a Vin Diesel doing The Pacifier as it is The Rock doing The Rundown.  It’s a nicely done action comedy with plenty of good laughs.  Jackie Chan has always had this way of doing action with comic flair–I still loved his work in the Drunken Master series–and it shows through very nicely in The Spy Next Door.

Plus, there’s even a little of that classic choreography that shines through here–a fight around a swimming pool will show it off nicely–and that adds a little extra to the whole thing.  Clearly, The Spy Next Door is trying its best, even if it’s not exactly everything we’d like. I thought the worst of it when I first saw it, but even I can admit it came out better than I expected.

Thus, the Screenhead Ten Scale, which is as fond of a good effort as I am, offers up a seven out of ten for a surprisingly funny, surprisingly exciting, surprisingly everything action comedy.  It’s not the best I’ve ever seen, but it’s far from the worst.