2014 was not a great year for Cameron Diaz. The actress, who rose to stardom when she debuted in 1994's The Mask, suddenly found herself at the center of three films that garnered reviews ranging from tepid to downright malicious with The Other Woman, Sex Tape and Annie. Diaz's best film (at least according to Rotten Tomatoes) was long behind her at this point, and the actor disappeared from filmmaking after "Annie" bowed in theaters. Now, she's back in a film that will certainly do little to make up for the poor reviews of 2014, but will, at the very least, give her global exposure, assuming Netflix ratings are anything to go by.

Diaz appears alongside her "Any Given Sunday" and "Annie" co-star Jamie Foxx in "Back in Action," in which they play ex-spies who settle and start a family in suburban Atlanta. As you might guess from the title and weak premise, however, the pair quickly make out (sigh) back into action, with Fox and Diaz's Matt and Emily having to escape the mercenaries sent by their former boss and protect their children in the process.

Director Seth Gordon ("Identity Thief," "Baywatch") said Tumdu that "Back to Action" came from him thinking about the idea of ​​"What would Jason Bourne be like if he had kids?" Well, finally, the question every Bourne fan must have been asking since Matt Damon's franchise debuted has been answered by yet another perfectly okay Netflix movie that will soon disappear into the unstoppable tide of streaming "content." However, before it becomes another forgettable streaming effort, it will apparently succeed in capturing our increasingly shrinking collective attention spans, as the entire world seems to be happily streaming Diaz's return to filmmaking.

Before Cameron Diaz has disappeared from Hollywoodshe was easily one of its biggest stars. While Netflix's middling action comedy may not look like anything to remind us of the actor's star power, Back In Action is at least proving to be very popular on Netflix. The film hit the streamer on January 17 and proved to be an instant sensation. According to FlixPatrolsite that tracks streaming viewership data across platforms, the film has been an undisputed success for Netflix, not only topping the most-watched charts in the US, but also becoming a global hit.

Stateside, "Back in Action" debuted on the most watched movie charts the day after it arrived on the service, reaching the top spot on January 18, 2025, and has remained there ever since. As of January 20, it's still in the top spot and looks set to stay there for a while, becoming one of Netflix's biggest releases of 2025 so far. It's the same story around the world, with "Back in Action" managing to repeat its chart-topping success in every other market.

As of January 20, the film is number one in 92 countries, just failing to top the charts in New Zealand, where it currently sits at number two. Even then, Back in Action was number one in New Zealand in its first two days on Netflix. If that's not impressive enough, Diaz's triumphant return has been number one every day since it hit Netflix in 88 countries around the world, indicating that it's not only going to dominate the US charts for a while, but it's also likely to stay on global rankings for the foreseeable future - especially since in every country it's on the chart, it hasn't fallen below second place in any of them.

You might think it's unfair to disparage yet another Netflix movie when it has the star power of Cameron Diaz driving it. Well, while I hesitate to direct your attention to Rotten Tomatoes, which claims there are only two "perfect" war movies and that Sean Connery's best movie is Darby O'Gill and the Little People, that 23% score for Back in Action isn't great. Rotten tomatoes does little to sustain the success of the film, which also has a lowly 4.4 out of 10 average rating. In his two-star review, The GuardianBenjamin Lee wrote, "While it may prove that Diaz still possesses the same magic, it also shows that she needs to be much more selective in how she chooses to share it." "Back to Action" certainly seems like an odd choice for Diaz's big return to filmmaking, but then again, audience numbers seem to suggest otherwise.

Case in point: Jack Black actually forgot he was in a Christmas movie with Diaz, which recently saw a Prime Video revival for Christmas 2024. While "Holiday" didn't fare much better critically than "Back to Action," it has a certain charm of its own, largely due to Diaz's own innate charisma, which is on full display in the romantic comedy. As such, the 2024 "Holiday" revival was arguably a better return for the "Back to Action" actor, who, with his meta title, looks like something of a Netflix Godfather. Artificial Intelligence Algorithms would have gone numb after cutting the viewership numbers.