A lot more ‘ miss’ than ‘ hit’ in its comedy arsenal

Let’s talk about Morgan’s parents in The Spy Who Dumped Me. They’re minor supporting characters, but I found myself thinking about them as I left the theatre after screening this R- rated, cheerfully violent, hitandmiss action laffer with a lot more “miss” than “hit” in its comedic arsenal.

The amazing Kate McKinnon plays Morgan, best friend to Mila Kunis’ Audrey. More about them in a moment.

Paul Reiser and Jane Curtin play Morgan’s parents. When Morgan gets mixed up in international intrigue yielding an ever- increasing body count, Dad keeps pedalling away on his exercise bicycle while casually offering advice, and Mom beams over Morgan’s appearance in the local newspaper.

The waste of Curtin and Reiser in these small roles is a misdemeanour compared to the criminally underwhelming parts written for Kunis and McKinnon.

Kunis has been impressing with her cinematic comedic chops since Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and McKinnon is a Hall of Fame- level Not Ready for Prime Time Player who has shown flashes of big- screen brilliance. This seemed like an inspired pairing — a golden opportunity for a foul- mouthed, bone- cracking action comedy along the lines of Paul Feig’s Melissa McCarthy- starring Spy.

Kudos to director and cowriter Susanna Fogel for the attempt to mix character- driven, buddy- movie comedy with elaborate, impressively shot action sequences, but The Spy Who Dumped Me has nearly as many DOA jokes as dead bodies, and that ain’t good.

Kunis’ Audrey is smart and kind, but as she hits her 30s, still a little lost. She tried law school. She tried art school. Didn’t finish either. These days she’s working in Los Angeles at a... grocery store? Yes, it’s a grocery store.

McKinnon’s Morgan is the obligatory wacky best friend, who hogs the microphone when it’s time to sing “Happy Birthday” to Audrey, offers nonstop, snarky commentary about nearly everything happening as it’s happening, and is so involved with Audrey’s life it borders on light stalking.

Justin Theroux is Drew, who dumps Audrey via text message on the eve of their one- year anniversary. Audrey was under the impression Drew was a nerd who had a podcast on NPR, but it turns out he’s a hardcore CIA operative who ended the relationship because he was worried about Audrey’s safety. That’s right. Drew is The Spy Who Dumped Me. Well, not me. Audrey.

Problem is, by the time Drew ends it with Audrey, various government operatives and agents and double agents and assassins are after Audrey ( and by association, Morgan) because they think she might know something about something.

Drew hands Audrey a plot device, I mean, a McGuffin, I mean, a cheap- looking fantasy football trophy and tells her to take it to a certain cafe in Vienna and to hand it off to someone named Verne.

Off we go on our international comedy of errors, which eventually involves Drew’s parents; Morgan going undercover as a trapeze artist at a Cirque du Soleil performance; a tired gag about using a dead guy’s thumbprint to access his iPhone; an MI6 agent named Sebastian ( Sam Heughan) who looks like a recently unearthed fourth Hemsworth brother; a Russian gymnast ( Ivanna Sakhno) turned runway model turned psychopathic assassin; and, oh yes, Gillian Anderson as Sebastian’s cool and calculating supervisor.

The action sequences are hardcore, which is a bit jarring when juxtaposed with all the quipping.

McKinnon has so much energy and creativity she nearly jumps out of the frame. It’s an uneven performance with mixed results, but we’re left hoping she’ll be matched up with a better film role sometime soon. Kunis does fine work, but there’s so much noise and nonsense, the movie never gives the two stars the full opportunity to establish chemistry.

That’s the real casualty of this corpse- strewn comedy.

— RR