A waste of time for Dave Bautista and everyone involved.
“My Spy” is a comedy so insipid, so head-ache inducing, and unfunny, it’s no wonder why it kept getting pushed back in its release schedule. That and the fact that the COVID-19 virus gave it a release on Amazon Prime.
It’s basically another version of the Burt Reynolds family comedy “Cop and a Half” with its trailers promoting a little girl teaming up with Dave Bautista as the main CIA agent, but really, she’s a fiesty girl (Chloe Coleman), who blackmails him into joining her for her leisure activities. And after they spend time together, she decides to become a spy, too.
What’s intriguing is the fact that little girl is the daughter of a dead mobster, which is why Bautista is surveilling her home, but that’s never is really explored. It just about his enemies, and they’re flat as pancakes.
“My Spy” isn’t as cruel, vile, and evil as “Coffee & Kareem,” another even worse “Cop and a Half” rip-off, but it still doesn’t even try to be funny, and wastes Bautista’s talents, making it even less impressive entry than “Stuber.” He’s able to take a break from the “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies with “Blade Runner 2049,” “Spectre,” and “The Man with the Iron Fists,” but lately, it’s been difficult for him to play the tough guy in a comedy without hamming it up. And Coleman makes Tatum O’Neil look like a millennial with her iPhone blackmailing and stubbornness. So far, I’m barely seeing a future in this kid.
For those of you millennials, who don’t know who Tatum O’Neal is, she is Ryan O’Neal’s daughter, who began her career in “Paper Moon.” In it, she worked with her father as a little girl, who joins a conman on his adventures during the Great Depression. I adored her disposition and attitude, and that masterpiece earned her an Oscar for her performance. “My Spy” will probably earn Coleman a Razzie.
You also get some desperate and wasted supporting talent like Kristen Schaal as a pain-in-the-ass tech girl, Parisa Fitz-Henley as the little girl’s single mom, and Ken Jeong as the sarcastic head of the CIA. I met Jeong a few years ago, and I know he can do better outside “The Hangover” trilogy, but here, he’s wasted. At least, he isn’t as painful as Schaal’s character. She’s got talent, but here, she acts like an ear wig. And Fitz-Henley has to be the formula single mom, who eventually finds out about her boyfriend’s undercover game. Will you shut up about this kind of turning point?
This a PG-13 movie disguised as a family comedy with all the kid’s adventures and activities. Schaal drops the “F” bomb in one scene (I mean I’ve heard it being dropped in the PG-rated “Beetlejuice,” but still), and there’s violence in the beginning and end. And yet, it tries to use all the kid cliches to label it a family comedy. “My Spy” is the worst movie in that category I’ve seen since “Daddy’s Home,” and I never told them to make a sequel.
⭐️
Available for Streaming on Amazon Prime (but save your money)
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