My Spy

My Spy is a 2020 American action comedy film directed by Peter Segal, written by Jon and Erich Hoeber, and starring Dave Bautista, Chloe Coleman in her film debut, Kristen Schaal, Parisa Fitz-Henley, and Ken Jeong. It follows a CIA agent who finds himself at the mercy of a precocious nine-year-old girl in a family that he and his tech support are surveilling while undercover.
My Spy was released theatrically on January 9, 2020 in Australia by STX Entertainment. On April 8, 2020, its distribution rights were purchased by Amazon Studios due to the COVID-19 pandemic having shut down theaters worldwide. It was released digitally on Amazon Prime Video and in select U.S. theatres on June 26, 2020, to mixed reviews. A sequel, The Eternal City, was released in July 2024.
== Plot ==
JJ is a former 75th Ranger Regiment soldier newly hired as a CIA operative. However, JJ's lack of subtlety causes him to blow his first major mission: busting an illegal weapons-grade plutonium trade in Pripyat between the Russian mafia and Hassan, a Middle East terrorist. Despite this, his boss David Kim assigns him and tech operator Bobbi, who hero-worships JJ, to keep an eye on the in-law family of Victor Marquez, a French illegal arms dealer who has obtained construction plans for a miniaturized nuclear bomb which he intends to sell to Hassan. Victor lost these plans to his brother David, who hid them before he was murdered by Victor; Kim suspects that the plans may be in the possession of David's American wife Kate and their 9-year-old daughter Sophie, who moved from France back to Wicker Park, Chicago, after David's demise.
JJ and Bobbi move into the building where Kate and Sophie live, and set up their surveillance. However, Sophie soon finds one of their hidden cameras, backtracks its signal and stumbles upon the operation post. Confronting JJ and Bobbi, she blackmails JJ into keeping her company while she tries to fit into an American kid's life and make some new friends at her school Oaktree Charter School. Despite JJ's social awkwardness, the two slowly begin to bond, and JJ also becomes acquainted with Kate and her neighbors Carlos and Todd. Sophie has JJ train her in the basics of the espionage trade, and brings him and her mother closer together.
JJ and Kate pursue Victor to an airfield in Naperville, where JJ grounds Victor's escape plane and starts a fistfight with him. In her attempt to escape, Sophie accidentally sets the plane in motion, leaving it hanging at the edge of a cliff on some wire fencing. Victor forces Sophie, who has hidden the real plans, to surrender them. Before he can shoot them, Kate clubs him onto the fence and JJ pushes the plane off the cliff, sending Victor to his death. After being reinstated by Kim for his success, JJ has himself permanently assigned to Chicago, where he moves in with Kate and Sophie.
== Cast ==
== Release ==
The film was originally scheduled for a theatrical release on August 23, 2019, but it was pushed back to an undisclosed 2020 date on July 10, 2019. After then being set for a January release and moved, it was pushed back yet again on March 7 (just a week before its scheduled March 13 release) to April 17. It was then pulled from the schedule due to movie theater closures since mid-March because of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.
On April 8, 2020, Amazon Studios acquired the film's distribution rights. It was released digitally on Amazon Prime Video, as well as in select Cineplex Entertainment and Landmark Cinemas, and drive-in theaters, on June 26, 2020. It made an estimated $107,000 from 104 theaters in its second weekend of domestic release (for a North American running total of $307,000). In November, Variety reported it was the third-most watched straight-to-streaming title of 2020 up to that point.
It was released on January 9, 2020 in Australia. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, it was released in the UK on March 13, 2020 without any alteration.
===Home media===
My Spy was released on DVD and Blu-ray on October 27, 2020 in Canada.
== Reception ==
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The site's critics consensus reads, "My Spy plugs Dave Bautista into the 'charismatic action star meets cute kid' formula, with generally painless albeit decidedly mediocre results." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 46 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
Ben Travis of Empire magazine gave the film 2 out of 5, and wrote: "This big-spy-meets-little-kid comedy isn't funny enough for teens, but not really suitable for younger viewers either." Kate Erbland of IndieWire gave the film a "C−" and wrote: "Saddled with a baffling PG-13 rating — the film's violence is muted, but a decision was made to throw in frequent profanity, plus the repetitive use of an un-edited version of Cardi B's 'I Like It' — My Spy seems destined to both alienate kids and turn off adults."
Writing for Variety, Richard Kuipers called it a "mildly amusing family comedy" and said that Segal "generates an amiable atmosphere in domestic scenes and gets solid performances from a cast that's given some good and some not-so-good material to work with."
== Sequel ==
In August 2020, it was announced that Amazon and STX were in discussions for a sequel, with the intention of Segal and the cast all returning. In January 2023, Bautista confirmed that a sequel was being filmed, with filming taking place in South Africa and Italy."Dave Bautista Confirms My Spy 2 Filming Wrap In Venice". Screen Rant. May 3, 2023.
== External links ==
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== References ==
Category:Films
Category:Films not released in theaters due to the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic
Category:2020 films
Category:2020 action comedy films
Category:Amazon MGM Studios films
Category:STX Entertainment films
Category:American action comedy films
Category:2020s English-language films
Category:English-language action comedy films
Category:Films about the Central Intelligence Agency
Category:Films directed by Peter Segal
Category:Films scored by Dominic Lewis
Category:Films set in Berlin
Category:Films set in Chernobyl (city)
Category:Films set in Chicago
Category:Films set in Paris
Category:Films set in Virginia
Category:Films set in Washington, D.C.
Category:Films shot in Toronto
Category:2020s American films
Category:Films impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic