I-Spy is a comedy action film with a touch of espionage that boils down to a buddy pic starring Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson each playing to their standard type. The result is a humorous entertaining movie with some nods to classic secret agent flicks. The narrative vacillates between motor mouth banter and action packed stunts.
The set up for the story is that a top-secret and deadly spy plane has been stolen. The good guys know who has it. That would be international arms dealer Gundars played by Malcolm McDowell. Gundars is going to sell the plane to the highest bidder at an exclusive party in Budapest to celebrate a very high profile boxing match up. All of this serves to pair up egoistical boxing champ Kelly Robinson(Eddie Murphy) with downtrodden secret agent Alexander Scott(Owen Wilson). The thinking is that Kelly Robinson will be able to get them into this exclusive party undetected. Famke Janssen tags along with the unlikely duo as an additional operative named Rachel assigned to help them out.
The premise is a little flimsy and there are definitely a few holes in the plot. The flick ends up working best though when Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson just do their thing. The two actors trade rapid-fire banter as they are being shot at, chased, and doing other spy activities. This is when this movie delivers genuine laughs and action that holds your interest. Although the movie seems to gloss over their unlikely friendship the end results are still satisfying.
I-Spy might not please hard-core fans of the spy movie genre. A lot of the spy work can come across sloppy when you think about it. Holes are littered throughout the story arc and everyone just seems to end up where they need to be. Sadly there are misogynist tones to some of the lines of Kelly Robinson. The character arcs feel forced. Like the entire narrative is simply in place to just get Owen Wilson and Eddie Murphy in outrageous situations. These things undermine the story, unfortunately. If some more care was given to smooth out some of these rough edges it would have elevated the entire movie and made it more well-rounded.
That being said fans of Owen Wilson and Eddie Murphy’s comedy should definitely check this flick out. I think they will be very satisfied. It does deliver an enjoyable and funny ride even with some bumps along the way. If you don’t think about it too much I-Spy provides amusement throughout its runtime. It’s just not all that memorable after the credits roll.
RORSCHACH RATING:
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Music by Beggars. I Spy is property of Columbia Pictures and Mill Creek Entertainment. We do not own nor claim any properties. Zombinatrix interview recorded at Creature Feature Weekend 2019!
