My Spy: The Eternal City
(M, 112 minutes, Prime Video)
2 stars
When My Spy first arrived back in 2020, it would have been very easy to write it off as another terrible cash-grab action comedy aimed at a family audience.
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But it was surprisingly sweet, with a Leon: The Professional kind of feel to it. The relationship between no-nonsense CIA agent JJ and savvy nine-year-old Sophie was great, both grew positively from their interactions and the action was actually fairly decent.
Now several years later audiences are along for the ride with JJ and Sophie once again in My Spy: The Eternal City (still directed by Peter Segal), and this time their relationship is more familial - Sophie's mum, Kate, and JJ got married, so he's now in stepfather mode.
Dave Bautista and Chloe Coleman return as JJ and Sophie, but Kate has been recast, with Lara Babalola stepping into Parisa Fitz-Henley's shoes (though Kate is hardly in the film at all). This time around JJ has given up field work, preferring to spend more time with his family. He just wants to be the best stepdad he can be, and takes time to improve his cooking game, train Sophie in self-defence and be involved in her schooling.
So when Sophie's school choir is selected to travel to Italy for a big international event at the Vatican, JJ jumps at the chance to be a chaperone and spend more time with his now surly teenage kid.
Also on the trip is Colin (Taeho K), Sophie's best friend and the son of JJ's boss David Kim (Ken Jeong), and Sophie's crush Ryan (Billy Barratt).
Sophie is determined to break some rules on this trip to spend more time with Ryan, and on one of their post-curfew adventures Colin gets kidnapped by a terrorist group seeking the location of a series of briefcase-sized nuclear bombs hidden around the world.
Now it's up to JJ and Sophie to help Kim (who has brought along analyst Bobbi - Kristen Schaal - from the first film) retrieve his son and stop the bad guys doing bad things.
This whole mission, of course, is just a MacGuffin to carry the action and comedy.
The action is pretty decent, with plenty of fights, chases and explosions, but the comedy is not as tight as the first film.
Where My Spy was packed with chuckle-worthy pop culture references and some slapstick to appease the kids, The Eternal City leans more heavily on physical comedy and loses some of its smartness.
There's a scene where JJ and Kim are attacked by CGI birds which Kim refers to as a booby trap. It feels like a missed opportunity to have used boobies instead of finches as the attack birds of choice.
There's also some odd casting choices. Craig Robinson, hilarious as the Pontiac Bandit Doug Judy in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, is barely used as JJ's CIA colleague, and has his best moments in the closing credits, and German actor Flula Borg is also underutilised as one of the main baddies.
Then there's Anna Faris, whose role is just distracting and obvious.
Giving Jeong more to do was a good choice, as he always provides plenty of comedic moments, largely just with faces of disdain.
Fans of the first film will delight over a special cameo which really provides some fun despite making very little logical sense.
Even though a lot of the stepdad-stepdaughter relationship between JJ and Sophie is well-trodden ground in the family comedy genre, there are some moving moments that will hit the spot for viewers who have experienced that particular relationship in real life. There's a line towards the end that makes JJ just the ultimate aspirational stepfather - "I didn't get to be there for your first nine years, I just don't want these ones to go too fast".
Setting most of the film in Italy was a great move - it's hard to beat the Italian landscape and architecture as a backdrop.
