My Spy: Film Review

My Spy: Film Review

Cast: Dave Baustista, Kristen Schaal, Paris Fitz-Henley, Chloe Coleman
Director: Peter Segal

My Spy knows what it wants to do and it has no pretense otherwise.

Bautista is JJ, a former Special Forces op who now works in the CIA - but whose hopeless ineptitude blows their biggest operation which centres around a potential nuclear threat.

Assigned to watch a family believed to be connected to the terrorists, JJ, along with new tech support buddy Bobbi (Conchords' star Schaal, who gets some of the best oneliners and moments) believes he's been benched.

But when the 9 year old girl Sophie (Coleman, amiable without ever being too precocious)twigs they're operatives, she deploys blackmail to help her settle into her new school and life...

Sure, there's a story we've all seen here before - the mismatched adult out of their emotional depth, and the kid who's looking for a surrogate dad. But My Spy doesn't pretend to radically change the formula, only play up to it, and occasionally, openly mocking it.

Bautista uses some of the same skills as Drax from Guardians of the Galaxy and Stuber to reasonable comedic effect, but in among the pratfalls, and silliness of the wafer-thin story lies a fairly solid piece of family fare that offers a few unexpected laughs, a subtle Indiana Jones gag and a faltering slide into inevitable sentiment (but never mush).

Bautista and Schaal have elements of the Melissa McCarthy comedy flick Spy, but it's Coleman and Bautista's charming double act that may catch you off guard, even if none of it feels utterly original.

It may dip a little unevenly and lean a little heavily into its terrorism plot to power things forward, but charm gets My Spy a long way, and it never outstays its welcome.