Pity poor Kate McKinnon. On the one hand, she's arguably the best thing on Saturday Night Live and has often saved many a sub-par episode from tanking completely on the strength of her talent alone.
She's also the only cast member in history to have won an Emmy for her work on the show twice, and she's been nominated six times in all, with plenty of other accolades along the way, including Entertainer of the Year for USA Today and a Critics' Choice TV award for best comedic actress.
On the other hand, when it comes to her big screen ventures, she's often come up snake eyes. Of her live-action major efforts, practically all of them received mixed reviews, and only a few- Sisters, Ted 2 and Office Christmas Party- were reasonably successful, but she only had minor supporting roles in each of those.
The others, including the highly-divisive reboot of Ghostbusters and the female-driven Rough Night, tanked big-time at the box office. Unfortunately, the two films were also her most high-profile starring roles to date, though she continued to serve in a more supporting capacity, leaving the more demanding leads to her co-stars.
It's actually a pretty smart gambit, if you think about it, as any failures tend to rest more on the films themselves, or, at worst, her fellow leading ladies, rather than herself. In short, she tends to pick roles where the fault for anything that goes wrong tends to land on people other than herself, often leading to her being one of the best things in an admittedly so-so end product.
Given the number of crappy movies some of her fellow SNL cast members have made over the years, who can blame her for taking a safer approach? Of course, it's probably inevitable that she'll eventually take on a lead role, and I do look forward to that. I just hope the project is worthier of her than some of the stuff she's done to date.
Her most recent turn, in the film The Spy Who Dumped Me, marks another step forward in claiming a leading lady role. Here, she plays second fiddle to only one star: Mila Kunis. Though funny in her own right- witness the Bad Moms flicks- Kunis is basically the straight woman to McKinnon's loopy sidekick in the film.
I'm also a huge fan of Kunis from way back, having first discovered her in her role as Jackie on the TV sitcom That 70's Show. I've had a bit of a thing for her ever since, being as how we're around the same age. In weird way, I feel like we've grown up together, and it's been interesting to see her transition from TV to a leading lady in film.
As with McKinnon, there have certainly been some bumps along the way. Her first major movie roles were in admittedly forgettable flicks like the teen comedy Get Over It, the iffy horror sequel American Psycho 2 and the thriller Boot Camp.
Her first big step in the right direction came with the Judd Apatow-produced comedy, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which showed that comedy was clearly the right lane for her overall, a fact solidified with raucous turns in Date Night and Ted.
While her stabs at more serious dramatic films like the sci-fi/fantasy efforts Max Payne, The Book of Eli, Oz The Great and Powerful and Jupiter Ascending have admittedly ended in iffy results, comedy has remained her greatest strength as a performer and the one genre she has almost always landed on solid ground within.
That said, I was a little hesitant to watch this film, somewhat dreading the results, and not exactly encouraged by what I'd heard from critics. But you know what? It's actually not so bad. Sometimes the critics get things wrong. No surprise there. (He said, as a critic himself.)
The Spy Who Dumped Me revolves around Audrey (Kunis), who finds herself dumped, via text message, by her boyfriend, right before her birthday. Her best friend Morgan (McKinnon) convinces her to burn all of his stuff and move on with her life, but when she gives him a heads up, he begs her to hold off until he gets there.
Unbeknownst to Audrey, her ex, Drew Thayer (Justin Theroux, The Leftovers), is, in fact, an undercover spy, and he has left something important hidden in a trophy at their place. Soon after, Audrey is grabbed by a man who claims to be C.I.A. and he tells her about her ex's double life, but she lies and says she hasn't heard from him.
When Drew finally arrives back at their place, a shoot-out ensues, and he confirms what the C.I.A. told her and begs her to deliver the trophy to a certain contact in Vienna if he doesn't make it. Sure enough, Drew is shot and, with an assist from Morgan, Audrey goes on the run, opting to honor Drew's wishes and travel to Vienna to hand off the trophy to his contact.
Perhaps needless to say, things go sideways at nearly every turn, as the girls find danger around every corner as they end up globetrotting around Europe to evade the many people after her, none of which they know if they can trust. As is typical with most spy thrillers, there are a lot of double-crossings and twists along the way.
Also joining in on the fun is a solid supporting cast that includes Sam Heughan (Outlander) as Sebastian, who claims to be a C.I.A agent on their side- but is he really who he says he is?
There's also a game Gillian Anderson (The X-Files) as Wendy, Sebastian's boss; Hasan Minhaj (The Daily Show) as Sebastian's more by-the-numbers partner; and Ivanna Sakhno as the dastardly Nadejda, a trained assassin hunting down the girls.
Also cropping up are McKinnon's fellow SNL vet Jane Curtin as her mom and Paul Reiser (Stranger Things) as her dad, plus a surprise appearance by "Edward Snowden," lol. (Obviously, not really him, but it's a funny bit nonetheless.)
The end result isn't too far removed from Paul Feig's Spy, but a better movie overall than that, IMHO, though I didn't hate that movie, either. Interestingly, it was directed by a woman, Susanna Fogel, with whom McKinnon worked previously on the indie film Life Partners.
Fogel shows herself even more adept at combining action and comedy than Feig, as this film contains some admittedly entertaining action set-pieces that are a lot of fun, even more so than either Spy or Ghostbusters.
The problem with those films is that often the comedic aspects of them ground to a halt when the action took over, while Fogel manages to combine the two in a way that keeps the laughs coming even as the action aspects of the film are happening. This is not the easiest thing in the world to do- just ask Feig- but Fogel pulls it off nicely.
A big help is the inherent chemistry of its stars, who are well-matched here. Both are legitimately funny in their own right, yet their approaches are quite different- meaning that, even if McKinnon's broad farcical approach doesn't work for you, Kunis' much-put-upon straight woman role might just do the trick. The oft-amusing supporting cast doesn't hurt, either.
I mean, is there room for improvement here? Sure. But you could say that about a lot of movies. All I know is that I was reasonably entertained by it, even at the slightly too long near 2 hours running time. While critics may have bashed it, and it didn't exactly light the box office on fire, I really enjoyed it on the whole.
Apparently, I wasn't completely alone, as the film also took home the People's Choice Award for Favorite Comedy, with Kunis also getting a nod for Comedic Actress for the film, so apparently audiences enjoyed the film, even if critics didn't as much. Wouldn't be the first time that happened.
As hit-or-miss as the two leading ladies can be on the big screen in the past, I do look forward to seeing what they have up their sleeves next. McKinnon has a role in an upcoming project by acclaimed director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire), alongside Lily James and... Ed Sheeran? Ok. Should be interesting.
McKinnon will also be in the next project by Jay Roach (Game Change, Recount), Fair and Balanced, a drama about FOX News, about the scandals involving Roger Ailes, featuring a first-rate cast that includes Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron, Margot Robbie, Allison Janney, Connie Britton and John Lithgow, among others. It will be interesting to see how McKinnon fares in more serious dramatic waters.
Meanwhile, Kunis has a voice-over role in the upcoming animated film Wonder Park and continues her ongoing role as Meg on TV's long-running Family Guy. She doesn't have any other upcoming credits listed, but as she divides her time between being a mom to two kids and Hollywood, that may be by design. Whatever the case, I look forward to seeing what she gets up to next.
The Spy Who Dumped Me isn't perfect, but it's nothing if not watchable, and if you like either or both of the stars, you should like it just fine. I laughed quite a bit, and even when certain jokes didn't land, I was still pretty entertained overall.
The action is solid, and it was a lot of fun seeing McKinnon interact with her real-life idol Anderson, who she famously dressed as for Halloween (as Dana Scully) once upon a time.
Factor in a fun turn by Curtin and Reiser as McKinnon's parents, and just enough twists to keep you guessing and you have a pretty enjoyable film, IMHO.
I say, screw the critics- give this one a shot. It may not be Oscar material, but then again, it's not trying to be. It's just trying to show viewers a good time, and I had one, so there you go.
Check it out!
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