The Spy Who Dumped Me (Review)
The Spy Who Dumped Me Is ‘Meh” At Its Finest.
The Spy Who Dumped Me has a pretty stupid name for a movie. At least that’s what everyone I’ve spoken to about it says. That didn’t mean that I wasn’t just a little bit excited to see it. After all, Spy with Melissa McCarthy was actually pretty funny, and this new movie stars Kate McKinnon in it (who was easily the best part of the Ghostbusters reboot) and Mila Kunis, who has also been pretty darn funny in the past. Unfortunately, after watching The Spy Who Dumped Me, I have a pretty good feeling why the spy dumped it.
The film is your typical fish out of water movie. Like so many other spy comedies a hapless bumbling buffoon finds themselves in over their head when they get mixed up in an international incident. The problem with The Spy Who Dumped Me is that it’s a best friend movie as well, something that sounds good in theory, but writer/director Susanna Fogel decided to take the qualities that would have made for a solid main character and splits them between Kunis and McKinnon. Normally, I would be all for watching these two acting like goofballs with super assassins after them, but Justin Theroux’s character said it best about McKinnon, “You’re a bit much.”
This is where The Spy Who Dumped Me broke my heart. I’m such a big fan of McKinnon that I was stoked when I saw the first preview for the film. She’s well known for cracking people up on Saturday Night Live, but in this movie, she only manages a few chuckles out of me. Honestly, I think it’s because her character is so inconsistent that it’s hard to get a read on what kind of humor we can expect from her. Is she obnoxious? Is she crazy? Is she an idiot? Who knows? McKinnon falls into the same trap that we’ve seen Zach Galifianakis fall into time and time again. The difference is that it works for him because he looks like a total creep. McKinnon can be creepy, but she is not a creep. Rather, she’s good at being a creep in short bursts. As far as Kunis character, well, she’s Mila Kunis.
Normally cliches work well in comedies like that and The Spy Who Dumped Me definitely snags onto every spy movie trope it can get its hands on. Normally in movies like this, everyone else plays their roles straight-faced while the main character bungles everything up. Fogel instead decides to make everyone just as absurd as Kunis and McKinnon. There’s a super henchman who is apparently a super assassin by night and a model/former gymnast by day, played by Ivanna Sakhno (who pretty much steals most of the scenes that she’s in). There are double agents, a British heartthrob (Sam Heughan), and, of course, a boss trying desperately to clean up the mess (Gillian Anderson). Like I said though, most of the time these characters play their parts with straight faces, which helps with the comedic stylings of the heroes. However, everyone seems to be in on the joke in one way or another and that sets the film up for failure.
I’m all for feminism. In fact, I like to say I’m an aspiring feminist (I’ll admit I still have a way to go in some regards). So, I did like that The Spy Who Dumped Me had some strong feminist themes in it. However, it breaks one of the main law of filmmaking: show, don’t tell. McKinnon’s character is incredibly supportive of women and especially of Kunis. As the film goes on though her feminism goes from uplifting to mean-spirited. Of course, there are some terrible men in the film who deserve to be told off, but it gets to a point where you’re just standing there watching her verbally beat them to a pulp. It’s like watching someone continue to beat on another person even after they’re down for the count. It’s just excessive. Then again, most of the “subtle” themes of this film are.
The Spy Who Dumped Me is not what I would call a laugh out loud comedy. It got some chuckles out of me from time to time, and there were a few scenes that made me laugh. These scenes though were when it reigned itself in though. When McKinnon wasn’t running around like a chicken with its head cut off and just smiled and delivered lines it was hilarious. However, it tries so hard to be funny that it feels desperate for you to like it. The film doesn’t seem to have the confidence in its story or characters for it to be a cool comedy. Instead, it feels like a dork asking if it can sit at the cool kids’ table. I was ready to like The Spy Who Dumped Me despite reviews for it. As the movie went on though I felt my smile slowly fade from my face and my interest starts to wane. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not unwatchable. It’s just a subpar comedy that left me disappointed.
However, I think I might not have been the right audience for this movie. For a group of young women looking for a night out at the movies, The Spy Who Dumped Me might actually be just the thing for you. As a movie overall though, it’s not very impressive.
