Dave Bautista is another bruiser-turned-babysitter in the flimsy and long-delayed My Spy
Film Reviews Movie Review
The most interesting thing about the new-ish action-comedy My Spy is its long and hapless history of missed release dates. Originally scheduled for an August 2019 debut, the movie was bumped into January 2020 and then March, where it held the distinction of getting pushed from the onset of the COVID-related shutdown to an even-worse April date, deeper in the heart of the pandemic, before Amazon finally stepped in to buy the rights and dash any dreams of a theatrical run. (The film did come out in Australia in January, and is also being made available to drive-ins.) It’s probably disappointing for the filmmakers, if not altogether inappropriate for the movie itself; beyond the presence of its specific stars, My Spy feels like it could have bounced around the calendar for years, even decades. And if Amazon hadn’t intervened, it might well have continued its unreleased journey for decades to come, a perpetually unfulfilled promise of another movie where an action-ready bruiser matches wits with a cute, precocious kid.
Truth be told, that meager promise is barely fulfilled by the film itself, even in belated release. Like so many other action-comedies, My Spy feels more like action versus comedy—an endless tug-of-war between goofing off and shit getting real. The goof-off side initially appears to have the numbers. Director Peter Segal made Tommy Boy and Anger Management, and has never gotten more slam-bang than his Get Smart redo. Here Kristen Schaal and Ken Jeong play CIA operatives. And designated lug Dave Bautista is probably best known for scoring some of the MCU’s biggest laughs as Drax from Guardians Of The Galaxy. What’s more, the premise seems to include kids as one of its targeted quadrants.
Sophie (Chloe Coleman) isn’t a troublemaking brat but a sensitive, lonely kid desperate to make friends at a new school. She and her single mom, Kate (Parisa Fitz-Henley), also have a connection to a nefarious arms dealer, which is why JJ (Bautista) and his new partner, Bobbi (Schaal), are dispatched to spy on them. After quickly blowing their cover, JJ strikes an unlikely deal with the kid: She’ll keep quiet about the CIA lurking if he teaches her some of his badass tradecraft. (Agency-approved steeliness being necessary to fit in with judgmental tweens is a funny idea, only covered in passing.)
The inevitable softening of JJ, self-esteem-boosting of Sophie, and chaste romance blossoming between JJ and Kate make for a sweet, harmless variation on the chosen formula—or they would, if not for the occasional ultraviolence insisting that this is an action picture, too. Despite its general kid-friendliness, My Spy seems determined to push the boundaries of its PG-13 rating, at one point literally tossing a bad guy’s severed head across some surveillance footage. Maybe the filmmakers figured that the decapitation reads as cartoonish because the special effects are so bad and the violence is separated from Sophie’s side of the story. Even so, it’s a human head separated from its body, flying around in a movie that seems designed to appeal to children. (It’s also not especially funny, as far as comic decapitations go.)
The action material in My Spy undermines its would-be cuteness, while remaining questionable on a level of cheap thrills. All the movie can hope to supply is laughs, which dwindle almost immediately without completely running out. Schaal has fun playing Bautista’s goofy foil, who seems ill-suited to the field for reasons predictably opposite to JJ’s fists-first bluster. Bautista has been funnier and/or cooler in plenty of other movies (and on Twitter, too). But he’s game to both scowl at children and bend his physicality into some stuttering dance moves, which Schaal memorably compares to a particular DreamWorks dance-party ending.
That’s a big laugh line in the trailer, which played in theaters for months on its own covert mission to convince audiences that this is an actual movie, rather than a vaporous hint of content that wafts onto a streaming service with little ceremony and low expectations. The actual qualitative specifics of My Spy—something far less memorable than Kindergarten Cop but a little less dumb than Playing With Fire—are beside the point. Bautista commits to the dad jokes, and young Chloe Coleman holds her own, but both actors are ultimately wandering through the mists of a movie that isn’t fully there.
37 Comments
I’m confused. Who’s Kumail Nanjiani playing in this movie?
According to IMDB, Cat Butthole #3
It seems that outside of James Gunn and Denis Villeneuve, Dave Bautista’s movie choices have been…less than stellar.
I’ve seen the trailer for this for so long that I honestly thought it was his second kid-adjacent movie. Stuber basically had the same premise and exact same AVC review grade, so that probably compounds the effect. C’mon Dave, you’re awesome. I know you’re cashing in on that Guardians exposure while you can, but there are far better options.
This was one of those movies where it probably looked a lot better on paper. The cast are all do a good job. The direction is really the weak part. There are tonal shifts through the film that seems like they are directorial choices more than the writing. This even bleeds through into the editing where you can tell they are covering for poor on-set choices by the director.
He’s just following the Rock’s patented wrestler-to-actor formula of doing some action, some action-comedy, and some garbage.
Bautista might be the best wrestler-turned-actor but he’s more of a character actor than a star. I suspect he doesn’t get that many quality offers.
I assume you’ve forgotten that The Rock was a wrestler because of his robust movie career.
No, I have not. He’s definitely the biggest star but I think Bautista has more range.
I think you’re both forgetting they these guys are following in the footsteps of Hulk Hogan who pioneered this career path.
No Holds Barred to Suburban Commando to Mr. Nanny to Reality Show to Sex Tape
I don’t think even Dave Bautista would agree with that.
Johnson is very likeable but he has zero dramatic range.
Dave Bautista was way better in THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS than that movie deserved. (So were Russell Crowe and especially Byron Mann.)
Not a Stuber fan? LOL
Honestly, being in a Bond movie probably isn’t a bad choice in general; he’s got the presence to be a Bond villain. It’s just the movie he was IN that was the problem.
do you remember in “Barton Fink” when Judy Davis is talking about hack movies like “sometimes I pair him with a child, sometimes with an idiot man-child, those scripts can get so..mmm…spirited!” Dave Bautista was just like: “I’m making those.”
Doesn’t Kindergarten Cop begin with a violent action scene that’s incongruous with the “kid friendly comedy” goals of the movie also? I don’t think I have ever actually seen the whole movie, but I remember being surprised when at age 6 or so I asked my parents to watch it and they told me it was too violent. Thankfully they cooled off on that pretty quick and a year or two later they let me watch most of Terminator 2 because they were so impressed by it and knew I would like it (I think they just skipped over T-1000 impaling people in the first half of the movie).
My only memories of Kindergarten Cop is (the trailer scene) where Arnold insists “It’s not a tumor” and that Richard Tyson is in it. I loved Three O’clock High.
Yeah, you’re right—KC does a similar thing in terms of trying to add a credible/violent thriller angle, which is probably why My Spy feels like they might as well give it a shot. But I think this movie is even more explicitly kid-targeted, because there are scenes from the kid’s point of view. I don’t remember if KC has any from the kindergartners’ actually POV but my recollection is that it’s really more about Arnold. This one is largely about Bautista, but the tone is very kid-com. (But with a severed head.)
I also thought about Cop and a Half, which I don’t remember in detail but checking wiki confirms my vague recollection that even though the premise is “cute kid hangs out with crusty cop Burt Reynolds for laffs,” it still has that kid witness a murder to instigate that situation.
But how does it compare to Mr. Nanny or The Toothfairy?
Hey, kids need to learn about severed heads flying across security cameras sometime.
I just can’t with Bautista. Ever since he pulled that #idratherdogoodfilms shit on the Fast & Furious franchise (which, yes, is hot garbage, but still), he’s come out with this, Stuber, and Escape Plan: The Extractors. Even worse, the movie he shit on – Hobbs & Shaw: Just Bone Already – got way better reviews than these steaming piles, so apparently #hedratherNOTdogoodfilms. (Not counting the hot second he was in Endgame, of course.)
Bautista was very good in “Hotel Artemis”
i don’t remember any of that, was he offered a part in H&S and turned it down on some ‘i’m an artist’ shit?
Man, when is Kristen Schall gonna get HER standalone action movie? Have her play the main baddie in John Wick 4 you cowards.
Hey, if the Zouk can be part of the John Wicks world, I don’t see why they couldn’t do something with Schaal.
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Man, it’s a shame he keeps getting cast in these shitty movies (they probably sounded better in the conceptual stages) because he has a kind of very specific, weird comic timing. He doesn’t have a broad range–I would think very carefully about casting him as a comic lead–but he does what he does very well. His cameo on WWDINTS as Garrett the Vampire was amazing.
Every action star must do at least one family movie that is nigh unwatchable. It’s one of those unwritten rules of Hollywood.
On the basis of this review I suggested my family not watch the movie, but they did anyway and enjoyed it (the violence-averse member of the family skipped the intro). Tired old cliches seem fresh if you’re under 12. I sort of half-watched it which is probably the right approach.
Yeah, I could see a kid having fun with it, which is why I found the few really violent bits kind of off-putting! But I’m glad they had fun with it. There are worse ways to kill a Friday night.
So what movie has the BEST severed-head gags?
Not sure about movies, but this season of Legends of Tomorrow managed to get some good mileage out of one specific severed head.
The Omen
The Parole Officer.
I liked this movie, but only because of the kid (she’s smarter than children tend to be in these). The opening action scene is pretty awful, so I agree about the tonal clash, which might be the film’s biggest issue. The other issue is Batista himself, who isn’t quite funny *enough* to carry the comedy. At least not in the way a Schwarzenegger or The Rock could. I can’t put my finger on why that is, because I don’t just want to say it’s charisma (I’ve seen that Dave has that). But I think My Spy could have been a better movie with someone like John Cena or Vin Diesel (both great with kids) playing the lead instead.