Review of The Spy Who Dumped Me (2018) by Morteza N — 19 Oct 2018

Boasting a tired plot but spiced up with exciting action and a story that, while nowhere near original, is still never boring, The Spy Who Dumped Me is a very mixed bag. For a knockabout caper its strangely serious and for a raucous comedy its not very funny.

There are a few good jokes here and there but many of them are painfully drawn out, and Kate McKinnon, someone I'm admittedly not a fan of, is allowed to completely overindulge her irritating, rambling schtick to the point that anytime she starts trying to make a gag I want the scene to end.

I found Mila Kunis to be a lot funnier, since she plays, essentially, the straight woman, having all the best reactions to the increasingly outlandish and unlikely scenarios. It tries way too hard to have a stereotypically convoluted spy plot, and takes huge shortcuts whenever it drifts off course.

There are also a few times when realism interferes and makes things hard to buy. For example, a character will get hit hard in the face several times and look no worse for wear, whereas another character will get punched in the nose and it will start bleeding instantly.

But if you can ignore things like this, and the fact that it exploits every spy movie cliché it can get its hands on, then the film does work. The action is far superior than the comedy, and the directing makes the chase scenes all the more exciting since we can always see what's happening and how much danger the characters are in.

The chemistry between the 2 leads is authentic and used well when the jokes work. I wouldn't rush to see it again, but I wouldn't object to a second viewing.