MY SPY
***
Synopsis:
A hardened CIA operative finds himself at the mercy of a precocious 9-year-old girl, having been sent undercover to surveil her family.
Review:
This is another one of those movies that’s been sitting around on a shelf at STD Films…oh, I’m sorry, STX Films, sorry, that joke will never get old for me, STX Films really does not have a strong track record when it comes to their films, they’ve been a mostly lackluster studio where they’ve made more misses than hits.
So, let me guess, My Spy is just another one of those shelved films that’s just dead on arrival, been sitting on a shelf for a while because it’s so bad, right?
Well….you might actually be surprised here.
Let me start off by saying that the movie isn’t a great movie by any means but it certainly isn’t a bad movie either, it’s actually kind of a fun movie.
Dave Bautista usually can add an enjoyment level to any movie he’s in, even movies as bad as Stuber or Spectre, he’ll usually stand out. And in this movie, he’s once again really good delving more into his comedic side in a role that harkens back to Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop or Vin Diesel in The Pacifier where he’s there to be the serious guy but also have a lighter side to him and he works well in that role. I like his relationship he has with the kid in this movie, played by Chloe Coleman, they have good chemistry to work off of.
Kristen Schaal has a good supporting role in this as does Parisa Fitz-Henley playing the kid’s mother, Ken Jeong was okay in this but at least he wasn’t that obnoxious annoying Ken Jeong that Hollywood likes to keep placing him in.
The comedy surprisingly works here, there’s a lot of simple, silly, over the top jokes and bits of humor in this and yet, I still found myself chuckling a lot in this and even getting some good hard laughs at times.
The biggest fault that I think the movie has is in its’ story, if you’ve seen movies like the aforementioned Kindergarten Cop and The Pacifier, even lesser stuff like Cop & A Half with Burt Reynolds, you know exactly where they are going to go, you know what the twists are going to be, you know you’re going to get the big misunderstanding, you know you’re going to get the liar revealed, so on and so forth, it’s very predictable, very clichéd, and it really is the part of the movie where you know it’s going to be the worst aspect of it.
My Spy isn’t an all-around home run hit but it isn’t the big failure a movie that sat on the shelf for awhile usually is either, it’s a surprisingly effective and mostly enjoyable movie on the levels of something like The Pacifier or Kindergarten Cop where you have a big action star working off against a kid. Maybe it’s because of Peter Segal, he’s just that director who can usually take movies that shouldn’t work and yet, somehow make them enjoyable, this is the guy that has done a ton of good stuff, Naked Gun 33 1/3, Tommy Boy, My Fellow Americans, Nutty Professor II, Anger Management, 50 First Dates, The Longest Yard, Get Smart, Grudge Match, even Second Act with Jennifer Lopez is kind of a decent film. He’s never made a really bad comedy and I think he knows just the right amount of quality to put into a movie that he can make something enjoyable.
My Spy is a good comfort food movie, a solid cast, solid laughs, good chemistry with the leads, nice action, and overall good direction. Don’t go in expecting a masterpiece but come out expecting a surprisingly fun movie in the long run.
IRRESISTIBLE
**
Synopsis:
A Democratic strategist helps a retired veteran run for mayor in a small, conservative Midwest town.
Review:
Six years ago, Jon Stewart made his directorial debut with the movie Rosewater, which I really loved and I would say was one of the best underrated movies from the last decade. So naturally, I got excited because I wanted to see what his next directorial effort was going to be and when I saw it was going to be a political satire, I thought to myself, “oh, this is just too perfect, this is right up Stewart’s alley, there’s no way this can possibly fail in anyway.”
The cast seemed solid, you got Steve Carell, Rose Byrne, Chris Cooper, the trailers looked funny, I was like “okay, here we go, this is gonna be so good, I can’t wait to finally watch this movie.” So, the movie finally came out and…
Oh dear mother of god, this was such a disappointment.
I mean, what happened here? This should’ve been something that should’ve been a home run hit especially for Jon Stewart who spent nearly 20 years every weeknight lambasting and satirizing the political landscape on The Daily Show and was still bringing those same laughs when he showed up on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert but this movie just takes the safest routes it can to bring some entertainment and…it’s shocking, it’s legitimately shocking how tame and safe this is.
I have no idea what went on behind the scenes, I don’t know if that was Jon Stewart’s decision or was that Focus Features’ decision to play it safe and try to be as inoffensive as you can be but it really does not fit in with what you would expect from Jon Stewart.
In a way, it almost kind of reminded me of Swing Vote from over 10 years ago, another political satire comedy that seemed like it was destined for more, had a great cast led by Kevin Costner, Kelsey Grammer, and Dennis Hopper, had a good premise that could lead to some funny political satire…and yet, it played it safe, it never took the full punches that it should’ve done and even has a kind of a lousy ending at the end, although it had good performances from the leads.
And here, it’s very much the same thing, Steve Carell and Rose Byrne do give these very funny charismatic performances and they’re a lot of fun, I like the banter between them and when they are on screen, the movie clicks…as it does whenever Chris Cooper is on screen. Chris Cooper is also really good in the film giving a very good performance and I’m just starting to realize that Cooper is another actor who can usually turn in a really good performance in even the worst movie and here, he really does carry a lot of the spark of the film when it’s not Carell and Byrne.
But other than that, Irresistible just doesn’t come together in the end, it plays it way too safe which is a shock considering the talent on board, it doesn’t get as many laughs or get its’ message it’s trying to get across well at all, and you just come out of this really disappointed by what you just saw.
Maybe that’s just the thing with these comedic actors turned directors, maybe once is enough because it was like that with Zach Braff, makes this incredible directorial debut with Garden State, one of my favorite movies, and then follows that up with the very underwhelming Wish I Was Here, same with Jim Rash and Nat Faxon, they wrote and directed The Way, Way Back, which is a fantastic movie, and then this year, they made one of the year’s worst movies with Downhill. The only times where I’ve seen a comedic actor make the transition to directing work on multiple levels are Josh Radnor, who went from How I Met Your Mother to directing two very good underrated comedies, Happy Thank You More Please and Liberal Arts, and the bigger one being Jordan Peele, who directed two of the best horror films from the last decade, Get Out and Us. I guess, some people just cut out to keep churning out great movie one after another….that or maybe Jon Stewart should direct a serious drama again, I mean, it worked for Rosewater.
Irresistible is a film that should’ve been so much more than it actually was and despite good performances by Steve Carell, Rose Byrne and Chris Cooper, it plays itself way too safe in the final run and the film ends up being one of the biggest disappointments of the year.
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