Starring Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, and Vince Vaughn. Rated 14A.

Hands up everyone who's ready to laugh about domestic abuse. No? Then you might want to give Mr. & Mrs. Smith a miss,

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie play the titular married couple, oblivious to the fact that they are both assassins for hire. "To dodging bullets!" they coyly toast one another with James Bond-style martinis when the truth is out. Cute. Yet then they commence shooting, stabbing, punching, kicking, and blowing each other up until full sexual arousal and mutual respect are achieved. By harping that they're the sexiest people alive, yet assigning them revolting jobs, personalities, and behaviour, Mr. & Mrs. Smith and its desperately self-conscious love scenes are about as appetizing as overcooked rump roast.

Screenwriter Simon Kinberg (xXx: State of the Union) appears to be going for The War of the Roses meets True Lies, peppered with snappy repartee íƒ   la Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. Early scenes, wherein disenchanted hubby and wife speak, at odds, to the camera while an off-screen marriage counsellor probes their unhappiness, are promisingly cute. But then, imagine Gable repeatedly putting the boots to his lady when she's down, or Lombard machine-gunning her kitchen in a symbolic obliteration of woman's traditional gender role, with neither remorse, comical facial expression, nor jaunty soundtrack to cue us to a tongue-in-cheek mood. It means, and offers, nothing.

That said, good God, these two lying, violent, manic-depressives are gorgeous. Director Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Go) milks his leads' sensuality as if there were a danger of them being bundled onto the first boat to Uglyville tomorrow. Eyes lock. Hair tumbles. Jaws clench. Lips pout. We don't discover why the Smiths don't just talk things out. And we're never sure if Mr. & Mrs. Smith is meant as a searing indictment of modern coupledom's sociopathic loyalty to career over family. But who cares? Just look how Angelina's bum barely hides beneath that black vinyl dominatrix minidress!

Mr. & Mrs. Smith makes one weep for the good old days of Twelve Monkeys and Girl, Interrupted, when each of the talented twosome appeared headed for a future driving intriguing dramas instead of encouraging tabloid fodder.

Thank goodness Vince Vaughn is on hand to contribute an understated comic performance as a mama's boy. But overall, with its flattering extreme close-ups and its incessant fight choreography, the movie plays like a fun, profitable outing for its stars rather than the audience. It if wasn't, we'd root for them. Or at least get to see them naked.