The Spy Who Dumped Me

Starring: Mila Kunis, Kate McKinnon, Justin Theroux, Sam Heughan, Gillian Anderson, Hasan Minhaj, Ivanna Sakhno, Jane Curtin, Paul Reiser, Fred Melamed
Directed by: Susanna Fogel
Rating: R
Genre: Action, Adventure, Comedy
2018

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Two friends (Mila Kunis, Kate McKinnon) get dragged into an international espionage plot.

Review:

Tim: The Spy Who Dumped Me is a movie that requires you to talk about both sides of the coin. On the one hand, this movie isn't good. There's a long list of flaws and things that simply do not work. A movie like this (directed by a woman, too) shouldn't have been so bad, so generic, so similar to dozens of other similar movies. However, for as bad as this movie looked originally, it actually has some strengths and it did make me laugh multiple times. The bad doesn't quite outweigh the good, but I enjoyed this movie more than I expected. It's a not a good film, but it's a perfectly decent comedy.

The story is fine. It creates enough humorous situations to elicit a few laughs, but it's all been done before. Spy comedies have been done numerous times before and this movie tends to follow the same format. It's formulaic and predictable. Now, while the story as a whole isn't anything special, the movie does tend to create some compelling sequences. The action scenes were surprisingly well done, especially early on in the film. I was surprised by these, namely the violence and the bit of blood and gore we saw. This was possible because of the R rating, but these sequences were actually effective. So many comedies like this make the mistake of not giving enough attention to the action scenes. This film did a better job than most.

There's quite a few funny parts throughout the film. The movie is never as consistently funny as it needed to be, but I admit I laughed multiple times. The funniest scene for me was in the interrogation room where the two main characters are confronting a CIA Agent about his bathroom habits. It was so stupid, but I was seriously cracking up. The scene where Kate McKinnon was trying to swallow the hard drive was funny, too. There were a lot of humorous moments between McKinnon and Mila Kunis. They worked well together and their friendship was fairly enjoyable. While I wish this movie was funnier, it did a decent job of making me laugh.

Kunis and McKinnon are certainly a solid team. Their characters are a bit too ridiculous, but they worked well together. Kunis was able to play more of the straight woman (which is her strength) and McKinnon was able to embrace her cooky side. I like Kunis and I thought she generally did a good job with the role. McKinnon almost always just annoys me, but I admit she had a few really funny moments here. She had a much harder role than Kunis and while she didn't deliver an exceptionally strong performance, she did create some legitimate humor. Her performance was mostly hit-or-miss, but it was way better than some of her performances, which felt mostly like a miss.

The supporting cast was fine. I'm disliking Justin Theroux less these days. His character wasn't that great, but he did a decent job. I wasn't a big fan of Sam Heughan. He really didn't seem like that good of an actor. That being said, I fault his talent, not his effort- it really felt like he put everything he had into the role. I loved seeing Gillian Anderson in a small role. Ivanna Sakhno was legitimately menacing. Hasan Minhaj created some really funny moments. Jane Curtin and Paul Reiser didn't have enough to do, but they certainly made the movie better.

Now, I do need to clarify that this isn't a good movie. The story was too weak, too convenient and too generic. There's been a bunch of movies like this and much of this film felt recycled, unoriginal. Too many of the jokes don't land and the whole movie just feels so stupid and lowbrow. There's also no reason for the movie to be almost two hours long. This is a lightweight, predictable movie- 20 minutes needed to have been cut. These and many other flaws really hurt the film.

As much as I was frustrated that The Spy Who Dumped Me wasn't better, I was also elated that I never hated the movie. It wasn't an especially difficult chore to sit through it. I did laugh and was occasionally entertained. Everyone involved as made much worse films, so there's at least some things to be happy about. I'd never recommend this movie, but it could have easily been worse than it was.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Bad Moms, Ghostbusters, Rough Night