I Spy pulls off a task I didn’t think was possible any longer (by the way, I’ve never seen an episode of the I Spy television series but I have my doubts as to whether or not this is a successful TV to film transition), it makes a living, breathing Eddie Murphy a likeable character again. Murphy has flatlined twice this year in two movies (Showtime and The Advetures of Pluto Nash) in which the less I say about the both of them the better. Here, Murphy is his usual loud, obnoxious and, most importantly, endearing self again. Murphy plays Kelly ’’K.O.’’ Robinson
A champion boxer with a 57-0 record when the president of the United States calls him up and asks him for a favor in the name of national security. Robinson’s job is to help Special Agent Alexander Scott (Owen Wilson) foil the sale, by a man named Gundars (Malcolm McDowell, wasted), of a super stealth plane known as ’’The Switchblade.’’ Luckily for Robinson and the president, this occasion takes him to Budapest, the location of his next fight. Witness Eddie’s genius as he pours his heart out to buddy Owen Wilson in the sewers of Budapest. ’’My grandmother was the first person to ever hit me, ’’ he says, ’’not hard just like a jab just so you’d know she was serious.’’ That, my friends, is a seriously funny line. The reply by Wilson is even better ’’parents just don’t take the time anymore.’’ Time, thankfully, is the one thing I Spy seems to have plenty of. It isn’t overlong it runs a quick and fitting 91 minutes but there is enough respite from the action for the characters essayed by Wilson and Murphy to build up a genuine comic rapport.
In one scene, Kelly gives Alexander some lessons in the art of pitching woo that results in a pretty funny rendition of Marvin Gaye’s ’’Sexual Healing.’’ For all of the things, I Spy has to it’s credit such as leading men with agreeable comic chemistry and a real sense of playfulness to it there are still a few flaws to be had. First, Betty Thomas doesn’t stage her action scenes with any flair. It isn’t hard to tell who is doing what to whom and with what size knife, but the action scenes don’t have any immediacy to them and unfold at a leisurely pace. I swear to you that I thought these guys only had seventy-two hours to save the world. Second, the villain Gundars is a boxing fanatic whose guest list for an elaborate party he is throwing as a precursor to Kelly Robinson’s championship fight in Budapest is supposed to be a who’s who list of international terrorists and such. Yet the script never develops any of these characters with even so much as a name.
Thankfully, for every predictable motion the film goes through (and there are a few) there is a laugh to counter it (a superspy named Carlos (Gary Cole doing his best bad Antonio Banderas) is given a wealth of cool spy equipment like sleek, sexy, miniature cameras and tracking devices that aren’t so weighed down they fall from the bottoms of cars they are supposed to be attached to while Alexander is given massive spy cams and giant inflatable balloons in place of parachutes) and for me that was enough to earn it a recommendation.
However, I would advise television purists to steer clear as a cautionary measure. Unless you are a fan of the goofy, subtle charm of Owen Wilson or the louder, more grating but still alive spark of Eddie Murphy.