Sigh. You gotta away with this shtick once. Once. And here’s a sequel that shows you should have left well enough alone. The original premise was dumb, probably shouldn’t have worked, and this is the proof.
If you failed to see My Spy, lemme sum it up. A nine-year-old girl IDs her neighbor as an undercover spy and, long story short, instead of the CIA changing the operation, the kid blackmails the spy into being part of her life. Yes, that premise is really, really dumb. But the film was cute and we-the-audience played along as if this were reality because we like the idea of a nine-year-old being mentored by a super spy.
Now, the game has changed. The spy is a desk spy and a stay-at-home dad. And he isn’t good in either role. This is a shame because 1) Dave Bautista is genuinely likable, 2) The kid needs a parent, and 3) There’s spy shit going on.
Sophie, now a teen, is gaga for a boy in her class, so much so that she’s having spy dreams about him. This kind of sets the table for three bad relationships in the film: Sophie (Chloe Coleman) and her would-be boytoy, Sophie and her bff actual boytoy (Taeho K), and Sophie and her step-father JJ (Bautista). I cannot emphasize enough that I didn’t like any of the relationships in the film.
Enhancing the issue is the part where JJ’s boss, a CIA director (Ken Jeong) is the father of Chloe’s actual boytoy. Ken Jeong is enough evidence by himself to show where and how the film goes wrong. If Ken Jeong is in a film, the film is a comedy. Period. In a comedy, there aren’t atomic bombs set to blow up Rome. There can be good guys, bad guys, cops and robbers, but there can’t really be serious megalomaniac psychopath anarchists; that’s a different film. In that film, Ken Jeong is five seconds of comic relief, not a major player.
The real problem here, however, is JJ. The film establishes early that he failing as a step-father. He cannot connect with Sophie; what worked when she was nine isn’t working when she’s 13. And the film makes him try harder, as in chaperoning on Sophie’s choir visiting Italy. When
villains show up in Rome and kidnap the actual boytoy, the stage is set. Now we get to see JJ meld bad parenting and bad spying all into one big package of stupidity.
Really, film? You’re gonna make me watch a parent try to beat the parent game by giving fake White Claws to Sophie’s friends and fail the spy game by letting her bff get abducted while he’s watching them If these were isolated incidents, I might forgive, but this is the ongoing story for the first 2/3 of the movie. Oy vey.
My Spy: The Eternal City wasn’t without smiles. I enjoyed the choir. Yeah, their set list was a tad conservative, but no biggie. I enjoyed a warehouse booby trapped by attack finches. You read that right. I’m not exactly sure how a flock of three-inch tall birds is supposed to quell Dave Bautista, but the idea raised a smile. Ratings-wise, I’m being kinder to this film than it deserved mainly because I did enjoy the (flawed) original and I wanted to see Dave Bautista, superspy. But, let’s face it, my imagination delivered far better than this film delivered.
There once was a spy named JJ
Who got blackmailed to father a stray
Years later, he’s her dad
And his life is just sad
Cuz he sucks at both jobs anyway
Rated PG-13, 112 Minutes
Director: Peter Segal
Writer: Erich Hoeber, Jon Hoeber, Peter Segal
Genre: Sequels that make you question the original
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: You really gotta love Chloe Coleman
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Dave Bautista fans
