Disappointing
Summary
The Spy Who Dumped Me has some surprisingly brutal and impressive action scenes but the script wasn’t as sharp as it could have been.
Plot: Audrey and Morgan are best friends who unwittingly become entangled in an international conspiracy when one of the women discovers the boyfriend who dumped her was actually a spy.
Review: This is one I was curious about when it was announced, since I’ve been a fan of Kate McKinnon since her work on SNL. The premise sounded mostly intriguing enough for me to want to watch it. My one concern was Mila Kunis, who I’m not the biggest fan of as an actress, but decided to see if this could go very wrong or just right.
Well, my first impression of the film when I first saw it in the theater was that it was really good, and that there weren’t a lot of problems at the time. Having rewatched it, I’m more mixed on it now.
First, I’ll talk about the positives and they are our two leads do have surprisingly good chemistry with each other, Mila Kunis was a big surprise as I liked her character who was likeable and very charismatic. Our male lead(played by Sam Heughan), was very solid and was really good during the few action scenes this movie had. Justin Theroux in his role was also solid for what he’s given.
The action is surprisingly brutal and very fun, especially one certain fight scene that happens which was very well done, the other set pieces are also solid. I then found out that the stunt coordinator for this film also did the Daniel Craig films and the Bourne films, which makes sense when you watch the action as it happens.
Now, for the negative, Kate McKinnon at times is funny, but seems to play herself in every film that she’s in(though this is her best performance considering she is given somewhat of a character, but I digress) the plot is very convoluted and very messy, especially when you get to the ending of the film.
Here’s another big problem, all the action stops after an hour in, I’m not sure how since this had a 40 million dollar budget behind it, and yet a film like The Hitman’s Bodyguard had a smaller one than this and yet gave us an exciting set piece at the end.
Some cast members are horribly wasted including Gillian Anderson, Paul Reiser, and Jane Curtin. Anderson isn’t given much to work with, while Curtain and Reiser are just embarrassing to watch.
My final complaint is the ending was very weak and very anticlimactic.
Overall, The Spy Who Dumped Me is a mixed bag of an action comedy with some good performances, has some solid action, but is let down by its script and direction at times.
