Keeping Up With The Joneses Review

Keeping Up With The Joneses is a comedy film which comes directed by Greg Mottola who has directed films such as Superbad (2007) and Adventureland (2009). The film stars Gal Gadot, Isla Fisher, Zach Galifianakis, Jon Hamm and Patton Oswalt. The film is about a couple who live happily in their neighbourhood and have just sent their kids to school. Some new neighbours arrive who are known as the Joneses. Everything is perfect about the Joneses, but Karen (Isla Fisher) is very suspicious of them, what could they be hiding?

This is the second Zach Galifianakis film that I watched this week and after watching Masterminds, I thought surely this one must be better. I mean Masterminds did have Owen Wilson, but this one has Jon Hamm, Gal Gadot and Isla Fisher, surely it would be great! But it sort of wasn’t really. To me the actors are all likeable people individually, but for some reason in this comedy, they didn’t really hit the mark in being that funny. I was in a full cinema and heard a few laughs here and there, but not heaps really. In comparison, I heard people laughing during Masterminds and that cinema was pretty much empty when I saw it. Another difference between the two is that Masterminds at least had a little meaning to the film, it was about doing something great with your life at least once and taking a chance, with Keeping Up With The Joneses, while it had some meaning keeping up with the neighbours, it loses that towards the end in amongst all the spy scenes.

The story starts off strong, the Joneses move in and the characters start to get to know each other. There’s some funny scenes when you see Jeff (Zach Galifianakis) go to work and you start to get to know everyone. Gal Gadot, Jon Hamm and Isla Fisher all have interesting characters in the beginning and there are honestly some mildly funny parts. But somewhere after the middle section, the film seems to change for a bit, and it changes into an action movie.

There are action scenes and more action scenes and the Joneses (Gal Gadot and Jon Hamm) are made to seem like these very impressive action spies who can do anything. But the thing is, there are action movies you could go and see this weekend like Jack Reacher: Never Go Back for example which has better action scenes than Keeping Up With The Joneses. I understand the plot requires a bit of action, but towards the end it seemed to me to be dragging on way too much. I just want to laugh when watching this, but the characters aren’t the best when it comes to the action scenes so it’s not the best really.

The films tone is very light and comedic, characters are very silly and are at times funny, but not enough for me to say that this was a phenomenal comedy, it’s just kind of average. There’s music played all throughout the film, much of it is light and humoristic, but there’s also some spy themes thrown all throughout the film for the action sections.

Overall Keeping Up With The Joneses is a film that I think I would enjoy if I had seen it at home and found it on Netflix or rented it when it came out to see how it was. It does have a few laughs in there and Gal Gadot, Isla Fisher, Zach Galifianakis and Jon Hamm are all cast members that I enjoy watching and would be happy to see any of their films. But as something that someone would have to see at the cinema and pay a high price for, I find it hard to recommend doing so because I don’t want people getting mad at me for saying to go see it this weekend. But I do stand by saying that it would probably be better to watch Keeping Up With The Joneses when it’s available for you to see at home, in this environment, I can see it being a fun film to stumble upon during a night at home.