Directed By Peter Segal

Starring – Dave Bautista, Chloe Coleman, Kristen Schaal

The Plot – JJ (Bautista), a veteran CIA agent, reunites with his youthful protégé Sophie (Coleman), in order to prevent a catastrophic nuclear scheme aimed at the Vatican, which disrupts a high school choir trip to Italy.

Rated PG-13 for violence/action, some strong adult language, suggestive references, teen drinking, and a nude sculpture.

My Spy The Eternal City – Official Trailer | Prime Video (youtube.com)

POSITIVES

The original ‘My Spy’ was a fun and clever action adventure diversion from a world on the brink of disaster with Covid-19, and though this one is dramatically inferior to its predecessor, some of the same merits still keep this sporadically enjoyable, mainly the father/daughter bond between Bautista and Coleman. While individually, their performances are just alright, with Bautista’s turn this time lacking the same edginess from the first film, together they banter well off of each other, with Coleman’s evolved maturity complimenting Bautista’s fish-out-of-water perspective in being a parent for the first time in his life, with each of them brandishing a lived-in brand of chemistry that not only feels believable from a familial outline, but also reflective of their bond in off-screen friendship, which serves the film tremendously. Bautista and Coleman are also joined once more by an expansively gifted group of comedians rounding out a virtual dream team, with one evolving performance between them stealing the show in the same way Schaal did during the first film. This time, however, I am not referring to Schaal, despite her off-beat comments seamlessly replicating the wackiness of the character, but rather Ken Jeong’s David Kim, who this time around is given far more to do in a script that virtually revolves around him. While Jeong’s comedic timing will always be there, it’s his dramatic muscle this time around that surprisingly showcases his emotional versatility as an actor, culminating with a series of against-type scenes and sequences that challenge the actor in ways he’s never experienced before. Aside from the performances of this decorated ensemble, the film is also blessed by some breathtaking cinematography from Larry Blanford, with stylistic luster from the on-site locations of Italy that this film is set in. While every other form of production is either blandly uninteresting or downright awful, the background imagery of the film is perhaps its single biggest complementary intake towards attaining a big screen appeal that neither of these films will ever truly taste, and with a couple of action sequences inside of its claustrophobic confines, the setting actually garners an influential kind of tangibility that does present challenges of its own for the characters, with an environmental beauty that I know the cast and crew basked in during filming.

NEGATIVES

Superfluous sequels are a dime a dozen, but even for streaming quality, the lack of effort put forth to ‘The Eternal City’ is remarkably lazy and lackadaisical, resulting in a sequel to a decent original film that truly didn’t deserve to see the light of day. It starts with the disjointed direction once more from Segal, who doubles down on the same kind of tonal whiplash that dampened the material of his original film, but this time with a far more serious dominance that made me truly wonder who this film was made for in the first place. Considering its second half evaporates into dark atmospheres when dealing with a terrorist organization, the film comes across as too serious for youthful audiences, and simultaneously too silly in various convenient set-ups for adults, constantly conflicting the movie’s comedic and dramatic moments brutally as scenes in respective directions deviate from one another throughout a nearly two hour engagement. This brings me to the second issue with the film, in that the script is stuffing as much as two films of material into a single offering, with an abundance of compartmentalized subplots and long-winded exposition dumps that wrangle the movie’s pacing towards feeling like a film that is continuously playing out in slow motion. Between Bautista’s J.J attempting to be a cool father to Sophie, Sophie’s desire to get with her school crush, a terrorist organization threatening Italy at the exact time Sophie’s choir class takes a field trip there, and J.J looking to settle into a desk job from his days of aggressive physicality, the film overwhelms itself by the halfway mark in order to balance each of them accordingly, and it not only grinds the film’s momentum to a screeching halt, but also results in boredom from the dialogue’s need to explain every aspect of the arcs, which I became more dejected from as the convoluted essence of its storytelling grew tedious. Likewise, the film’s attempt to succeed as an action comedy results in two failed efforts for the price of one, with neither being anything remarkably special or effective with the way they’re conjured. The action is subjected to overzealous editing practices and uncomplimentary angles that never captures any of the enticement or urgency of the sequences, and the comedy falls so humiliatingly flat during obvious and repetitious set-ups that it elicits groans during intentionally cutesy moments, primarily during the film’s first half. For the second half, it’s pretty much non-existent, as the film’s aforementioned dependency on the strictly serious robs it of any semblance of the charming film that its original grew to become. This leads to another forgettably bland antagonist, this time with an enveloping mystery that can easily be sniffed out by anyone paying even remote attention to the proceedings. I say this because one member of the ensemble stands out like a sore thumb among the others, and while the against-type casting of this individual could conjure some unique opportunities in the way they execute the role, the result is unfortunately disappointing, as they’re robbed of the charisma that we’ve come to expect from them. If the film’s execution relaxed to the same kind of self-aware waters that it treaded during the first film, then this person could’ve embellished more in the maniacal mayhem of being a world-threatening terrorist, but the film strangely sedates this individual after the big reveal is made, doing little in the way of deviation from an overwhelmingly predictable affair that is perhaps the worst aspect of this entire film. If another weak antagonist to this flailing franchise doesn’t earn this certification, then cheap looking conjures in special effects with both lethal birds and sacred interiors certainly is, reminding the audience repeatedly of its streaming quality production, which ultimately feels like it sets the cause back a decade, from how horrendous looking they both are. While the birds lack complete believability in the ways they move and interact with the actors, the artificial backdrop of the Vatican is so much worse, with obvious close-ups on the framing that can’t evade the overwhelming feeling of an actor standing in front of a green-screen. Because the rest of the film is shot on-location, but this building being off limits to filming, it hinders the scene’s legitimacy long before we’ve had time to realize its glaring distraction, eliciting some of the only laughs that I had throughout the film, though of the unintentional variety.

OVERALL
‘My Spy: The Eternal City’ is an unnecessary and uninspired sequel, full of so many overstuffed arcs and tonal whiplash that it grows tediously taxing on the attention span even before the film’s halfway point. Though Bautista and Coleman are still a delightfully dynamic duo who imbed heart and sensitivity to their respective characters, the material surrounding them offers no favors for the misfortunate, cementing a predictably bland and emotionally flat film that took two films and four long years to properly materialize something so sluggishly soulless.

My Grade: 3/10 or F+