The Spy Who Dumped Me (2018) Review

"Do you want to die never having been to Europe?  Or do you want to go to Europe and die having been to Europe?

-Morgan 

Audrey Stockton (Mila Kunis) is trying to get over her boyfriend, Drew Thayer (Justin Theroux), who dumped her over a text message.  Before Audrey can finish burning all of Drew's possessions, he returns and informs her he is a spy and has to get a package to Austria, but he his shot and killed.  On the run, facing murder charges, Audrey and her best friend Morgan (Kate McKinnon) flee to Austria so they can save innocent lives.  As they stumble their way through Europe, Audrey and Morgan face off against the CIA, MI6, assassins, and terrorists, with no one to trust but themselves.

What Works:

The best part of this film is the action sequences.  They are shockingly violent.  The filmmakers held nothing back.  There are some absolutely brutal kills and some amazing stunts.  I was blown away by how good the action was, as I wasn't expecting this level of insanity at all.

The humor in the film was very hit-or-miss, with the majority of it being miss, but I will say there were a few hilarious moments.  There was a lot of tonal inconsistency with this film, but it was at its best with the dark humor.  There are a few sickly funny moments sprinkled throughout that were so absurd they were great.  There weren't a lot of them, but when they showed up, it was awesome.  

Both Justin Theroux and Sam Heughan were great as basically James Bond stand-ins.  They both brought chemistry and physicality to their role and they rarely, if ever, had to delve into the humor that didn't work so well in this film.

Finally, I want to mention the 3rd act.  In includes a trapeze fight sequence, and I gotta say it was pretty cool and wholly original.  It wasn't perfect, due to the awful character involved in it, which I will get into below, but the action aspects of it were very cool and something I haven't seen before.

What Sucks:

As I mention above, the comedy was very hit-or-miss.  A lot of the film was very low-brow and juvenile, which isn't by itself a bad thing.  I don't particularly care for that kind of humor, we're talking toilet-humor by the way, but it clashed with the rest of the film frequently.  Also, there were plenty of jokes that weren't juvenile, they simply weren't funny.

The tone was a big problem for this film.  It was horribly imbalanced.  As I said, it swung from toilet-humor to being dark and brutal then back to toilet-humor so fast it could give you whiplash.  It felt like they didn't really know what kind of movie they were making.  It was part Paul Blart part Kingsman and that combination simply doesn't work.

Mila Kunis' character was very dull and painful uninteresting.  But even worse was Kate McKinnon.  She was pretty unbearable to watch.  She was so over-the-top and ridiculous plus half the crap she said didn't make any sense.  She is easily the worst part of the movie and it isn't close.  

Verdict:

The Spy Who Dumped Me is an extremely inconsistent movie.  The action is superb, the dark humor is hilarious, and both Justin Theroux and Sam Heughan are great, but the toiler-humor was way too much, the tone is imbalanced, Mila Kunis is boring, and Kate McKinnon just sucks.  If they had changed her character, or recast, or something, I would probably recommend this film, but I can't.  The Spy Who Dumped Me does a lot right, but it also does a lot horribly wrong.

 5/10: Meh