The words Back in Action are as much a promise as they are a title. After all, anyone who considers themselves a fan of Jamie Foxx or Cameron Diazand Netflixs algorithm clearly thinks there are a lot of us out therewill know theyve been away from screens for serious reasons. Its been almost two years since Jamie Foxx experienced a stroke that left him hospitalized and initially unable to walk. So seeing him dance, kick, and float across soundstages again is the kind of rare catharsis that even AI analytics can never genuinely quantify.While Diazs own reasons for stepping away from the screen were more voluntary, theyre no less significant. Since the performer chose to retire from acting after 2014s Annie, she has not appeared in a new film for more than a decade. Yet here she is again, back in action and dancing, kicking, and bantering with Foxx like no time has passed for either of them. (In truth, Diaz has told the press her off-screen friendship with Foxx is a key reason Back in Action marked her return to the movies.)The more outside knowledge you bring to the film, then, the more satisfying it is to see them doing their thing. Because otherwise one cannot help but wish they were doing it in something better than this anodyne, innocuous, and wholly disposable piece of fluff that was blatantly designed to be a second-screen time-waster.The films premise is easy enough to digest, even when youre looking at your phone during the many expository scenes: Diaz and Foxx are introduced in a sequence set fifteen years ago when they were still hot-shit spies at the CIA. They steal WMDs from terrorists and bad men, drink champagne on their own private planes, and survive said planes crash while barely sustaining a scratch. However, right before the aircraft went blasting into the Alps, the pair also learned Diazs Emily is pregnant, and her partner Matt (Foxx) is the papa. So they use the close call with oblivion to Irish-goodbye the spy game and fake their own deaths.Cut to the present and the pair are living a painfully recognizable form of suburban American normalcy. Matt coaches his daughters soccer team; Alice gets her kids ready for school and dreams of moms movie Mondays; and said youngins, teenage Alice (McKenna Roberts) and tween Leo (Rylan Jackson) think their parents are hopelessly lame. That might begin to change though after the olds go viral on TikTok by beating the clout out of some college twerps hitting on their underage daughter. They unfortunately end up back on the radar of old friends like CIA handler Chuck (Kyle Chandler) and bad mercenaries who want the MacGuffin they stole in that plane crash. Road trip hijinks ensue with the children in the back and on the way to MI6 grandmamas house.Back in Actions metaphor for a suburban midlife crisis through the prism of spy games and mirthful action movie clichs is not a new one. James Cameron made one of his frothiest (and perhaps most problematic) movies out of it in True Lies. In that one, it was Jamie Lee Curtis bored housewife who realized her hunky husband (Arnold Schwarzenegger) wasnt getting those muscles from selling computer monitors on the road. A little later, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie fatefully sizzled up the concept in a double-header where it turns out the non-communicative spouses were both spooks for rival agencies in Mr. & Mrs. Smith.Back in Action tweaks the premise again. Husband and wife are still both spies, but now theyre aware of their shared history, even as theyve kept their past adventures secret from the kids. It is an amusing enough wrinkle for any parent whos ever realized their children believe Mom and Dad never had a life before they were bornand that old folks have always been lame. Director and co-writer Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses, Baywatch) might not be reinventing the wheel, but plenty of entertaining studio comedies of yore, including Horrible Bosses, have started from less.Alas, Back in Action is less studio comedy than modern streaming content. The action is largely pedestrian and obligatory, lazily hanging on popular needle drops that range from Frank Sinatra to Etta James; the jokes and plot twists are obvious; and the overall effect ultimately being adequate. It is meant to be consumed but never experienced, and even the thrill of seeing Foxx and Diaz back in action fizzles quickly.Both actors who broke out in the 1990s and 2000sand spend much of this movie explaining to these Gen-Alpha youths that theyre not Boomershave a nice easygoing rapport, but never one youd mistake as romantic or sizzling. The pair come across like old college chums who still like to hit the pub once in a while. Its more work-wife and work-husband than the real marital thing, to use a term Gen-Xers wont be offended by.They just seem happy to be here and go through the paces and martial arts paces that is a far cry from what they were doing back in Charlies Angels or Miami Vice heyday, never mind Being John Malkovich or Collateral. Unfortunately, the paces the movie gives them so barely register a reaction that its remarkable how quickly the running time gets stolen from them by Glenn Close and Jamie Demetriou as an unlikely May-December pair of grandparents.There are moments of bemusement to be had from the leads, particularly whenever the film reuses the beat of them astonishing their kids by beating the stuffing out of bad guys time and again. Mom and Dad got moves?! Were sure plenty of real-life Gen-X and older Millennial parents will revel in the fantasy of showing the perpetually online generation how things were done back in the day before social media came along. But its all in service to a streamer that threw in this movies towel to the smartphone screen before a punch was ever rehearsed. In other words, on family movie night, this one is more for the olds. The kids can (and will) keep scrolling.Join our mailing listGet the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox!Its still nice to have Diaz and Foxx back, but next time lets hope they return for more than a Silicon Valley paycheck.Back in Action starts streaming on Netflix on Friday, Jan. 17.