Recently, I’ve been traveling, and that affords me an opportunity to ask questions to people I don’t know and get fairly honest answers. One question my buddies and I like to ask is what people think of Angelina Jolie.

Almost universally, men start sweating and breathing heavy. The rest is self-explanatory. We’ve learned not to ask this of men any more.

Women, on the other hand, resoundly hate her. I don’t know if they hated her back when she was boinking Billy Bob Thornton (although I imagine they were more confused than hateful). But after Brad Pitt tanked his relationship with Jennifer Aniston for dead-on freaky sex with Angelina Jolie, women as a breed have not liked her.

The reason is simple. Jennifer Aniston is someone that could be their girlfriend. Angelina Jolie, on the other hand, is the slut who sleeps with their husbands.

So what does this have to do with “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” – aside from it being about the personal lives of the stars? Nothing at all. But you were interested, weren’t you? After all, you’re reading this now.

The bottom line is that no level of infidelity is going to stop women from slobbering over Brad Pitt, just as no amount of resentment or feelings of inadequacies is going to stop guys from drooling over Angelina Jolie in this film. That was the magic of “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.”

For once, Hollywood got it right. The stars had chemistry (obviously have chemistry if she’s schnookered him into adopting her kids). The writing was slick. The directing was eye-popping. This was a damn funny movie, as well as being a cool action piece.

In the DVD, there’s a solid selection of special features. The disc boasts not one... not two... but three commentary tracks. One features director Doug Liman and screenwriter Simon Kinberg. The second is with producers Akiva Goldsman and Lucas Foster. Finally, the last is with editor Michael Tonick, production designer Jeff Mann and visual effects supervisor Kevin Elam.

These are particularly interesting, especially the one with Doug Liman because I love hearing him tiptoe around discussing his stars. Rumors from the set were that Liman and Jolie had some real problems, and one rumor even suggested that Brad Pitt had to be a go-between for them to communicate. Initially, I thought this would lead to a bad film, but I realized that it helped add to the tension on set, which worked in this case.

Liman manages to dote on Jolie a little too much, and if you read between the lines, it’s clear that she didn’t completely trust him to not make her look stupid. At least Brad Pitt was willing to be silly and self-deprecating in this film, otherwise it would have unraveled.

For the more technical information (or whenever you’re tired of Liman whining about how little money they had for this film), switch to the other tracks. There’s a wealth of information in here, and it’s the highlight of the DVD.

Other special features includes deleted scenes and a “Making a Scene” featurette and some trailers. Nothing terribly new and unique there, but they are fun to watch.



Specifications: Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound. DTS 5.1 Sound. Widescreen (2.35:1). French and Spanish language track. Spanish subtitles. English language subtitles for the hearing impaired.