There is good trash and bad trash. My Spy is good trash, which makes you laugh, makes you happy, and makes you think not one little bit. You need not concern yourself with protocol, regulations, or even common sense. A human battering ram befriends the small girl he’s supposed to be observing from afar. This goes way beyond philosophical skepticism; it’s one thing to change an object merely by observing it; it is quite another to take the object out for ice cream.
JJ (Dave Bautista) is about as subtle as a French police siren. It’s not just that he’s built like he could break a metaphorical crime wave by himself; he seems actively intent on doing just that. I don’t know when we got to the stage in criminal history that the rogue agent unpins a pair of grenades like pop-top soda cans, fluidly flings them to the peripheries, and casually strolls towards the camera while entropy prevails in his wake, but JJ is the personification of said cliché. Caught in a Russian web, he refuses to double down on his lie, instead opting for the play where everybody dies. It’s the dif between movie CIA agents and real life CIA agents.
His superiors are not pleased and essentially give him house-sitting duty in Chicago. Now, one really has to ask why the CIA posed a human fireplug with no language skills and limited training undercover as the head of a Russian mob syndicate…I think his failures are on you, CIA, but again, this is not a movie where you don’t ask questions.
It takes all of five seconds for JJ to get made by 9-year-old Sophie (Chloe Coleman). That’s some good spyin’ there, Lou. While I’m pretty sure that the genuine CIA has a standard procedure for when an agent loses anonymity –which almost certainly includes packing up shop and moving on, this movie made it a plot point. You see, JJ really needs this job, cuz CIA agents probably can’t get work elsewhere; hence, Sophie blackmails JJ into teaching her secret agent stuff in return for not spilling the beans. Oh wait. We’re in Chicago … umm, uncasing the kielbasa. Thus to Sophie, JJ becomes My Spy.
It’s not a great premise. And this excuse to pair a little girl with a strange highly skilled man the size of an elephant has been done before, somewhat unsuccessfully, in The Pacifier and The Game Plan. What makes this version different? For one thing, JJ is a touch more sensitive. Films like this are set up so that the mountain of a man has a gruff exterior to match his frame and that the child will gently erode the mountain. JJ here has a pet betta fish named “Blueberry.” Any man voluntarily choosing to call a fish “Blueberry” is one that takes a minimal amount of eroding…and for my money, I think that makes the silly relationship a touch more realistic. JJ is able to see Sophie’s POV because he’s a natural father figure despite him having the build of three father figures combined. Good happens when you befriend a refrigerator.
So, please, turn off your brain, and adjust your heart monitor to “Awwwwww” and you might just enjoy the friendship between monster truck and precocious preteen. It’s not art, but it’s Dave Bautista, what did you expect? His best art comes as a member of the blue man group. Part of me still wonders how long the Bautista career will last. I like Chloe Coleman here a lot, but child actors are always a crapshoot. So, I tell you what; I’ll give you straight-up odds on who lasts longer in Hollywood.
♪Nothing you could say can make the CIA claim My Spy
(My Spy)
Nothing you could do could alter the view of My Spy
(My Spy)
I’m sticking to My Spy cuz he’s a pachyderm
You’ll sooner misplace a pregnancy third term,
I’m telling you he’ll erupt with alacrity abrupt, that’s My Spy♫
Rated PG-13, 99 Minutes
Director: Peter Segal
Writer: Erich Hoeber, Jon Hoeber
Genre: BIG MAN, little girl
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Fans of The Game Plan and The Pacifier
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Fans of the CIA
♪ Parody Inspired by “My Guy”
