My Spy the Eternal City: Family-friendly spyjinks

My Spy the Eternal City (2024) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for action violence, brief profanity and ill-advised teen behavior

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang

This film’s 2020 predecessor was one of the better entries in the odd little sub-genre that places macho action stars into light-hearted romps with children.

 

While Bobbi (Kristen Schaal, left) nervously awaits the worst, JJ (Dave Bautista)
reluctantly allows Sophie (Chloe Coleman) to pursue the bad guys ... while placing
too much faith in her insistence that she "knows how to drive."

Acknowledging that — and seeing no reason to change a winning hand — director Peter Segal and co-writers Erich Hoeber and Jon Hoeber have reunited with the original cast for another stunt-laden dose of spyjinks.

Although this sequel also can’t be taken seriously, the plot is a reasonable anchor point for droll character interactions and — as was the case with the first film — the solid dynamic between co-stars Dave Bautista and Chloe Coleman. Once again, their rapport feels reasonably authentic, and they’ve grown comfortably into their roles.

 

Four years have passed, since the events in the previous film. Former ace CIA operative JJ (Bautista) has transitioned into a desk job, in order to lead a more peaceful life with Kate (Lara Babalola), while also becoming a more attentive parent to her daughter Sophie (Coleman). Alas, now a teenager, the last thing this girl wants is a helicopter stepfather who constantly gets into her business.

 

Sophie’s focus is on hunky fellow high school choir member Ryan (Billy Barratt), much to the dismay of her best friend, Collin (Taeho K), who has long worshiped her from afar. Alas, Sophie takes Collin entirely for granted.

 

Elsewhere, CIA section chief David Kim (Ken Jeong) is horrified to discover that a crucial op has failed, thereby placing the locations of 100 nukes into the hands of enemy terrorists. 

 

Back at North Virginia High School, the choir has been selected — along with numerous other youthful choruses from the States and around the world — for an international competition that will climax with a massive performance for the Pope, in Vatican City. To Sophie’s horror, JJ eagerly volunteers to be one of the chaperones; this prompts nothing but derision from the head chaperone: rule-oriented school principal Nancy (Anna Faris), who doesn’t think he could possibly handle the responsibility.

 

Indeed, the first night in Venice is almost a disaster, when the kids break curfew. But the quick-thinking JJ saves the situation, which raises his cred — a bit — with his youthful charges. Unfortunately, things subsequently go awry when JJ unwisely allows Sophie, Ryan and Collin some “fun time” one evening.

 

At which point, Collin gets kidnapped.

Overboard: Floats delightfully

Overboard (2018) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for suggestive content, mild profanity and fleeting partial nudity
By Derrick Bang

The rule regarding remakes is inviolable: If it won’t be at least as good as the original, don’t bother. Please.

As it happens, writer/directors Bob Fisher and Rob Greenberg’s re-boot of 1987’s Overboard isn’t as good.

Things are about to get unpleasant: Little realizing that he's minutes away from humiliating
her to an unacceptable degree, Kate (Anna Faris) initially is intrigued by the devil-may-care
playboy antics of Leonardo Montenegro (Eugenio Derbez).

It’s better.

For starters, this new version is remarkably faithful to Leslie Dixon’s script for the original film, down to the setting in fictitious Elk Cove, Oregon. (Filming actually took place in picturesque Steveston and Fort Langley, British Columbia.) The key plot beats are retained, allowing for minor shifts here and there. The stroke of genius, however, is the gender flip: It allows for entirely new levels of humor derived from droll pokes at traditional masculinity.

Adding a cultural element to the mix also brings creative opportunities for hilarity.

And while it’s refreshing to see Anna Faris in a romantic comedy that doesn’t rely on eye-rolling moron humor, she has to work hard to keep up with co-star Eugenio Derbez, who’s no less than a force of nature. He pretty much blows her off the screen. Although beloved and respected in his native Mexico, his roles in American films have been minor until now.

That’s about to change.

Derbez’s line delivery is sublime; his comic physicality has the fluid grace of a dance impresario. He can be laugh-out-loud funny while standing still ... not that he does much of that, in this well-crafted comedy. The premise was rich back in 1987, and Derbez makes the most of it here; he’s amusing, feisty, endearing or woebegone at the blink of an eye, and he makes you believe each shift, even in a silly comedy such as this.

Events begin with a prologue, as the paterfamilias of the Montenegro family corporate dynasty — Fernando Luján, as Papi — lies in bed, near death. His daughters — the imperious, avaricious Magdalena (Cecilia Suárez) and the meek, artistic Sofia (Mariana Treviño) — are stunned when, following tradition, their father announces that the business empire will be left to their ne’er-do-well brother, Leonardo (Derbez).

The fellow in question is an arrogant, insensitive, spoiled-rotten playboy currently anchored off Elk Cove in his luxurious yacht, which is complete with, respectively, hot and cold running women and champagne.

What's Your Number: Close to zero

What's Your Number? (2011) • View trailer for What's Your Number?
1.5 stars. Rating: R, for profanity, vulgar humor, sexual candor and fleeting nudity
By Derrick Bang


The one bright spot in last year’s otherwise atrocious Dinner for Schmucks was the main character’s hobby of creating adorable little “mouseterpiece” dioramas.

The one bright spot in this week’s otherwise atrocious What’s Your Number is the main character’s hobby of creating adorable little “clay people” dioramas.

Ally (Anna Faris) can't believe how easily Colin (Chris Evans)
is able to track down some of her ex-boyfriends. You won't
believe how little is made of this story premise, or how badly
this 106-minute misfire needs to be shorteneed. To perhaps
25 minutes.

I’ve no idea what this proves, except that perhaps the producers of vulgar, numbnuts comedies might consider basing an entire movie on the figures in little dioramas. I’m pretty sure they’d wind up with better films.

What’s Your Number is the most recent example of what will, lamentably, become a trend for the next few years: sex comedies featuring potty-mouthed women. In the wake of the $281 million scooped up by Bridesmaids — on an initial budget of only $32.5 million — we’re simply doomed. Hollywood doesn’t ignore returns like that.

Meanwhile, we have What’s Your Number as a wincing example of star Anna Faris’ misuse of her 15 minutes of fame. She rose through the ranks as a supporting player in the Scary Movie franchise — fitful spoofs of the already spoof-laden Scream series — and delivered some acceptable television work in Friends and Entourage before breaking out in 2007’s rather deplorable The House Bunny.

Despite being a stinker, that flick pulled in $70 million. These days, careers are based on much less.

Since then, Faris has lent her voice to a pair of animated hits — Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel — and starred in three flicks that came and went so quickly, you can be forgiven for wondering if they ever saw release: Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel, Observe and Report and Take Me Home Tonight. All were bombs, and she contributed her fair share of the carnage.

The plain, hard truth is that Faris isn’t very talented. Her “acting” is forced, stiff and clumsy, her body language sub-par summer stock, her voice somewhere between shrill and braying. She has no comedic timing whatsoever: rather ironic, given her work thus far. Her one asset is a rockin’ little bod that was made for sex, which she shrewdly refuses to bare completely; she does, at least, recognize the allure of the provocative tease.

If only director Mark Mylod and the writers of this mess understood such restraint.

What’s Your Number is scripted by Gabrielle Allan and Jennifer Crittenden, both veterans of TV sitcoms such as Jesse, Scrubs, Everybody Loves Raymond and Arrested Development. Apparently not content with the constrained environment of network TV, they’ve teamed here to adapted Karyn Bosnak’s novel, 20 Times a Lady, a sharp-edged chick-lit entry from the Candace Bushnell Sex and the City school.