Delayed Reaction: My Spy

Premise: A secret agent gets blackmailed by a little girl who records him on a secret mission.

 

There's an obscure law in Hollywood - leftover from the studio contract days of the 50s, I think - that says if you are a bodybuilding, wrestler type of action movie star, you a required to make a family movie in which you play on that persona. To my knowledge, only Sylvester Stallone has gotten out of this*. It turns out, winning an Oscar gets you out of this requirement. Pretty much everyone else though - Vin Diesel, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dwayne Johnson, John Cena - has had to do this. These aren't particularly good movies, but you'll find defenders of all of them if a person was in the right mood when they watched it. I still remember a friend of mine in high school who swore by The Pacifier (Vin Diesel), for example.

 

*He's tangentially enough connected to Spy Kids that you could nearly count that.

 

On a more serious note, these stars make these movies because they realize they have fans who are too young to be watching their other movies. The former wrestlers in particular are aware of their young fans and feel a responsibility to them.

 

My Spy is Dave Bautista's kid movie. I'll spare you further suspense. I really liked this movie. Maybe I was just in the right mood for it, but I laughed out loud several times. It makes sense too. Unlike a lot of these action stars, Bautista has already developed a comic persona, mostly through the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. He's great at being comically sincere and even better when he's flustered. In other words, pair him with someone who's a bit of a sociopath and you'll get comedy gold. That's where little Chloe Coleman comes in. She's not the greatest child actor I've even seen, but she's really good at talking down to adults. That's perfect for this movie. Honestly, I preferred her and Bautista in this as a duo to Bautista and Kumail Nanjiani in Stuber, which didn't take advantage of Bautista's strengths as well. Also, props to Kristen Schaal, who plays a more human character than I expected, given what she's normally cast to do.

 

Don't get me wrong. The movie is dumb. There's some humor in it that's entirely for kids. The story follows the same frustratingly predictable beats. Much of the comedy worked so well because I set my bar really low. But, this is easily the best version of this movie.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend