My Spy Struggles With Comedy and Originality

It is May 2008. I'm watching a rerun of Kindergarten Cop. I have never seen this movie but it's already familiar. A muscular action star playing opposite a precocious kid in a children's movie. The formula is apparent.

It is November 2004. I'm eight years old. I'm in a movie theater waiting to watch Chicken Little. The trailer for The Pacifier plays.  A muscular action star playing opposite a precocious kid in a children's movie. It has happened again.

It is June 2020. I am twenty-four years old. I'm at home watching the new movie My Spy. Directed by Peter Segal, My Spy concerns CIA agent JJ (Dave Bautista), whose good at snapping necks but bad with people. When little girl Sophie (Chloe Chloeman) stumbles on his newest mission, Sophie coerces JJ to be her friend in order to earn her silence. In the process, JJ and Sophie begin to help solve each other's personal problems.

This movie has already run for ten minutes. Yet it already feels like it's run for an eternity. Screenwriters Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber have created an utterly formulaic script. Every beat in the story is predictable.

In thirty-five minutes time, JJ and Sophie will begin to bond at a school event.

In seventy-five minutes time, JJ's lies will catch up to him and he'll briefly have to leave Sophie's life.

It is December 2009. I am fourteen years old. The impending end of Middle School weighs heavily on my mind. At some point, I catch a portion of the trailer for The Spy Next Door. There it is again. A muscular action star playing opposite a precocious kid in a children's movie.

Two hours into my future, I struggle to write a review for My Spy. There's so little to say about a movie this disposable. The filmmaking is stale. Jokes are executed lifelessly. Only Kristen Schaal, as a C.I.A. accomplice to JJ, manages a handful of laughs. Otherwise, My Spy is totally forgettable. How can I write about this movie?

I am sixty minutes into My Spy. The villain of the movie, Victor Marquez (Greg Bryk), just stabbed someone to death. Why does a film aimed at children feature such gruesome deaths? It's understandable when darker kids movies like The Dark Crystal or Rango engage in violence. But usually My Spy has all the edge of a Dove hand soap commercial. The random bursts of violence are intrusive rather than an organic extension of the tone.

I am ninety minutes into My Spy. Kristen Schall just delivered her fourth witty line referencing some odd detail in the plot, in this case the fact that a runway was built next to a cliff. My Spy seems to believe that characters being aware of nonsensical details in the script will automatically create comedy. It doesn't. Lampshading is not an apt substitute for jokes.

It is March 2017. I am watching Bringing Up Baby for the first time. I am cracking up. Katharine Hepburn is a comedic master. This is one of my favorite comedies. My Spy is certainly not.

It is July 2, 2020. My Spy has finished. Clumsy pay-off's to JJ's inability to either ice-skate or dance close out the movie. It's an awkward finish. Dave Bautista is a good actor. He can be quite funny. But he's poorly directed here. His depiction of JJ struggling in social situations just makes the character come off as abrasive. Meanwhile, his handling of JJ's myriad of slapstick stunts isn't very funny. Bautista's performance lacks life, as does the rest of My Spy.

It is now five hours later on July 2, 2020. My fingers tap away at the keys on my laptop. I am writing the final words on my review for My Spy. What an awkward movie. Not funny enough for adults. Kids will probably be bored by it more than anything else. Talented people like Dave Bautista and Kristen Schall deserve better than starring in the newest Cop-and-a-Half knock-off.

I'd hope a forgettable movie like My Spy would put an end to bad family movies starring a muscular action star playing opposite a precocious kid.

But if Hollywood has taught me anything, it's that nothing ends. Nothing ever ends.

Stuber Hits Too Many Speed Bumps

Who doesn't need some extra dollars these days? For his part, Stu (Kumail Nanjiani) tries to earn some extra cash by being an Uber driver, a job that puts him contact with a whole lot of eccentric people that tend to give him low-star ratings for nonsensical reasons. If he gets lower than a 4-star rating, he gets kicked off the service, so Stu is determined to make every ride he can the best ride ever. This includes the ride he gives Victor (Dave Bautista), a cop hot on the trail of a drug-dealing gangster, Oka Teijo (Iko Uwais), that he has a personal score to settle with. Due to Victor having some vision problems stemming from Lasik surgery, he coerces Stu to help him out on this violent mission that this pacifist Uber driver is certainly not prepared for.

Final Score Is A Better Than Expected Take On The Die Hard Formula

There is a moment in the British action film Final Score where a reckless arrogant law enforcement officer refers to the sport of football as soccer only to be hit over the head by one of the non-Dave Bautista protagonists who staunchly informs him "It's called football!" It's one of the big crowdpleaser moments of Final Score that's clearly designed to elicit a big cheer from the audience. If that sounds too ridiculous to you, this isn't your movie. If you're like me and the mere concept of that moment sounded like a delight to you, right this way folks, Final Score is gonna be your cup of tea.

Hotel Artemis Is An Unusual But Delightful Getaway Spot

I've stayed in a number of oddball hotels in my life, including one located somewhere in Texas that totally felt like the sort of location that characters go to get either arrested, shot or both in a Coen Brothers movie, but I've never stayed at a hotel like the Hotel Artemis, a hospital/hotel exclusively for criminals located in Los Angeles in the near future. It's a place run by The Nurse (Jodie Foster) and her dutiful assistant Everest (Dave Bautista), who take care of any criminals who need some under-the-radar fixing up so long as said criminals have an official membership. The newest people to check into this hotel are bank robbers Sherman (Sterling K. Brown) and his intensely damaged brother Honolulu (Brian Tyree Henry).

In Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2, The Cosmic Weirdness, Fun And Interesting Characters Are In Full Supply!

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has done a lot of things right, but man, it took 'em a while to get a handle on doing their second movies in individual franchises right. Their first one of these specific type of features, Iron Man 2, is still by far the weakest and most narratively messy MCU film while their next effort in this area was Thor: The Dark World, a heavily flawed fantasy movie with some elements of fun scattered throughout. Right after Thor: The Dark World, they finally got one of these movies right with Captain America: The Winter Soldier and continued that trend with the gonzo yet thoughtful Avengers: Age Of Ultron. Now, you may be pondering to yourself right now, is Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 more on the order of Iron Man 2 or Captain America 2?

The Next James Bond Movie Will Be Called...Spectre!

Oh man, did I love Skyfall. Now, frankly, James Bond was the one cinematic entity I didn't grow up surrounded by, and I freely admit many older James Bond films have escaped my viewing. But I know a good film when I see one, and Skyfall more than fit the bill. An excellent feature that more than whetted my appetite for my Bonds mayhem, which on the way for next November!

The Next Bond Movie Villain Will Be Played By Christoph Waltz!!

With Skyfall, the James Bond franchise just a double O boost, with critical, audience and financial reception at an all-time high. The next adventure for the super spy starts filming in December for a November 6, 2015 release date, and now casting is underway. While Dave Bautista had been previously cast in the film as a baddie, the newest Bond villain will be played by two time Academy Award winner Christoph Waltz!