It’s late summer, and that means a little bit of filler
before you head into the October horror flicks, then the ‘holiday’ movies, then
the year-end Oscar-bait.
The Spy Who Dumped Me is a forgettable action comedy that
begins with Audrey turning 30 having just been dumped via text message by her
boyfriend Drew. She is not thrilled with
the current status of her life, aside from her amazing best friend,
Morgan. While at work one day, a
handsome british dude gets her to walk him to his car, and swiftly abducts her,
telling her that Drew is actually a spy for the CIA, and that he hid something
everyone is now after. Audrey and Morgan
inexplicably end up on an international cross-department mission to find the package,
deliver it to the buyer, figure out who is double-crossing who, and save the
world.
There’s not much else to say about the plot, the comedy
comes from the situations of two regular L.A. type ladies thrust into insane
spy sequences. This is director Susanna Fogel’s first major film as a director,
and she does a fine job, the action scenes are pretty good, and the cast is
good. Perhaps my issue is with the
writing? It’s just not as funny as it could be with a cast this talented.
- Mila Kunis plays Audrey, and does a good job as a woman who feels stuck in life, and is not sure what to do next. An accidental superspy seems right up her alley.
- Kate McKinnon plays Morgan, and most of the actual laughs I had during the movie were because of her offhanded reactions or one-liners.
- Sam Heughan and his new haircut play Sebastian, the handsome MI6 agent who steps in to try to save Audrey and get her to do the right thing.
- Hasan Minhaj plays Agent Duffer, Sebastian’s CIA partner who is there to annoy everyone by constantly reminding everyone he went to Harvard.
- Justin Theroux plays Drew, and I don’t know what it is about him that I don’t like, but I can’t think of anything I’ve seen him in that I liked him in.
- Ivanna Sakhno plays the hitwoman Nadedja, who seems to be questionable at her job. She definitely has an intimidating look.
- Gillian Anderson has a brief role as the MI6 boss who starts by being disappointed by Sebastian, then won over.
Overall, the movie isn’t terrible, and it has some laughs –
but it is really uneven. It seems to
want to be both a crass comedy and an over-the-top action flick. I think it
would have been better served to just focus on the buddy action beats and let the
comedy come from the two leads, who are exceptional at it. Kunis and McKinnon are really good together.
5 out of 10, don’t bother with it in the theater, but if it
comes on TV, give it a watch.
No comments:
Post a Comment