By Courtney L. Woods
The jury is still out on the “TV show turned into movie” genre. Charlie’s Angels was okay, the Brady Bunch films were wacky, and now comes the new version of I Spy, starring Owen Wilson and Eddie Murphy. The original show ran from 1965 to 1968 and starred Bill Cosby as Alexander Scott and Robert Clup as Kelly Robinson, two spies who mix action, adventure, and comedy. In the film version, they switched up the names; Owen Wilson is Alex and Eddie Murphy is Kelly, who just happens to be a professional boxer.
To be perfectly honest, the story starts out slower than molasses in January. A plane, “the Switchblade,” which can become invisible, has been put out on the market by a Budapest baddie named Gundars. Kelly Robinson just happens to be fighting a bout in Budapest and is used by the spy affiliate to infiltrate the party. Alex, a spy who just became a “special” agent before the Budapest journey, is not pleased to learn that he is working with a civilian, let alone the self-absorbed, third-person-speaking Kelly.
The third-person thing gets a little old. The plot gets a little old too; that is, until the comedic pairing of Murphy and Wilson finally gels. Alex is completely enamored of a coworker named Rachel (Famke Janssen), and while in Budapest, he hopes to “stakeout” with her. Kelly finally helps him seduce her a la Cyrano de Bergerac and spy technology. The funniest part of the movie is the duo’s rendition of Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing.”
The storyline is never actually great, but it definitely gets better toward the end. Owen Wilson is usually the high point of his films (Zoolander, Meet the Parents, The Royal Tenenbaums); however, he seems to be misused in this particular film.
As for Eddie Murphy, this isn’t a Coming to America, but neither is it a bomb like The Adventures of Pluto Nash. Anyway, he does have great catchphrases like “Leafy-bug” and “Jelly Bird.”
CARDINAL GRADE: C+
