‘My Spy The Eternal City’ movie review: Dave Bautista’s sequel is stale but redeemable

My Spy The Eternal City, a sequel to the spy action film for children and teens, lacks originality but entertains.

The line between tacky and good ‘ol fashioned can get too lean in this sub-genre — joyfully unserious spy action films, made for children and teen audiences. 2020’s My Spy managed to just about come out on top, with some poignant touches in its storyline, and a lot of freshness imbued into its familiar tropes. My Spy: The Eternal City, a sequel coming after four years, also charms you with its conventional appeal and good humour, but falls short of bringing anything new to the fore.

The emotional chords weaken as well, even when convincing ideas are in the mix. The first film followed a hardened CIA agent’s cutesy bond with a nine-year-old girl; it was a bond that birthed out of loneliness, of what a soldier-turned-agent faces in his new job, and of a child whose widowed mother has too much on her plate to take her to ice-skating parties. In the sequel, Sophie (Chloe Coleman) is an adolescent dealing with teen angst, while JJ (Dave Bautista) grapples with how Sophie is changing and these new emotions he feels as a father, which pull him back from taking on-field missions.

Of course, on paper, these are ideas that can help these characters’ arcs pillar the film, in whatever little space they get. Unfortunately, Sophie’s arc is rather too hurried; she decides to go after a hot-shot stud of the class, Ryan (Billy Barratt), and you know she will be made to rethink her decision, with the meek and introverted Collin (Taeho K) visibly taken by her. Of course, narratives that help youngsters with their decisions and complicated teen relationships need to be repeated for newer generations, but why write Ryan and Collin as such cardboard cut-outs?

The emotion gets further diluted by a genre-cliche action storyline at the centre of it. This time, as Sophie goes to the Vatican City as a part of her school choir, JJ accompanies her to thwart a terrorist attack. We are told that these Russian terrorists are after activation codes to a hundred suitcase nukes that the KGB had hidden all over the world at the end of the Cold War — just the run-of-the-mill. David Kim (Ken Jeong), Collin’s father and JJ’s boss, gets sucked into the plans of the antagonist, whose identity is kept secret for much of the movie, only to end up as a stock spy movie villain.

Except for a couple of scenes — like the one in which Kim and JJ are attacked by trained finches or the one set in an airbase where the activation codes are stored — nothing else really stands out. Bautista’s acting chops are on full display, but save for a couple of fistfights, his action-hero avatar doesn’t get enough opportunities to shine. Coleman though puts into her performance as an unruly rebel teen as much vigour as she does in her fight sequences. In one particular sequence, she uses taser guns to bash two familiar faces to the ground.

The grand finale is a colossal mess. It’s the routine saving-the-world cliche, only supported by some good humour (and a little help from a ‘blue’ angel). Speaking of which, Bobbi (Kristen Schaal) is back to rescue JJ and the team (and the film), with her infectious energy, humour, a**-kicking, and eyes-closed-shooting. She also advises Sophie to try sloppy kisses, something she also puts to use in a scene better untold.

My Spy: The Eternal City is far from the ideal sequel you would expect for My Spy. However, this isn’t an unredeemable franchise either. That you still wish to see more from these characters says that perhaps writer-director Pete Segal and writers Erich and Jon Hoeber need to take a closer look at their drawing board.