THE SPY WHO DUMPED ME

3 outta 5

*** outta *****

CHRISTOPHER ROBIN

**** outta *****

4 outta 5

Two wide theatrical releases on August 3^rd weekend were action comedy The Spy Who Dumped Me and the heart-warming fantasy Christopher Robin. A tenuous thematic similarity between the two is they’re both madcap chase movies about the power of friendship, be it magical friends from the Hundred Acre Wood, or the friends a woman needs to help her kill spies. Anyway, how do they stack up?

In The Spy Who Dumped Me, Audrey (Mila Kunis) is moping because her wayward boyfriend, Drew (Justin Theroux), broke up with her. Her best friend, Morgan Freeman (Kate McKinnon) tries to help Audrey get over him but Drew shows up bringing trouble because he’s actually an international spy and evil people are gunning for him. Now Audrey and Morgan end up on the run across Europe with help from spy Sebastian (Sam Heughan) to get a piece of critical data to safety.  

The plot is pretty weak as it’s basically revolving around a standard spy plot MacGuffin stored on a flash drive like way too many spy movies before it. However, the movie does get a few funny, gross out laughs with the lengths that Audrey and Morgan go through to hide the flash drive. The best lines involve McKinnon delivering random asides like how she rants about how she knew Edward Snowden and he was really into Ska music or when she asks a killer acrobat “What was the name of the nun that abused you in the orphanage?!” Sometimes it seems the director just put the camera down in front of McKinnon and let her randomly riff but she’s great at that. Kunis is more the straight woman but she has some funny reactions.

Hasan Minhaj and Gillian Anderson play government spies and both have some fairly funny moments, especially Anderson’s annoyance at incompetent underlings and Minhaj telling everyone he went to Harvard. As the spy boyfriend, Theroux gets in different shadings in his limited time on screen and every once in awhile he does something funny. As the other spy, Heughan is less interesting but he has some good aggravated responses to Audrey and Morgan acting crazy but he’s basically just love interest #2.     

Strangely, the only overt James Bond reference in the film is the title.  Austin Powers movies are a fairly deep parody of the spy movie genre but Dumped is a buddy comedy that happens to be set in the spy movie genre. The action isn’t exactly spectacular however it is pretty darn messy, which is fun since so often action movies the action is scrubbed for a lower rating in the USA (this still got a 14A in Ontario). There’re various moments of extremely graphic comedic violence, especially how Morgan deals with an assailant in a deadly trapeze showdown and Audrey’s usage of a corpse’s thumb.  

The Spy Who Dumped Me is great when it goes for full bore action, gross out, or just foul mouthed and zany. Repeated attempts at romantic chemistry or emotional bond between the two ladies sort of fall flat. But when it’s just actors hollering loudly and running over bad guys it’s an amusing lightweight romp.

Christopher Robin is about the Christopher Robin (Ewan McGregor) who is grown up and moved beyond from the Hundred Acre Wood populated by his magical friends, Winnie the Pooh (Jim Cummings), Tigger (also Cummings), Eeyore (Brad Garrett), Piglet (Nick Mohammed) and many more. Christopher is married to Evelyn (Hayley Atwell) and they have a bookworm daughter, Madeline (Bronte Carmichael). Sadly Christopher is more dedicated to his job and boss, Giles (Mark Gatiss) at the expensive of his family. One day, Christopher sees Winnie in the real world and, convinced he’s going mad, Christopher tries to return Winnie to the Hundred Acre Wood but soon leads his magical buddies to the real world.

The fictional Christopher Robin is based upon the real life Christopher Robin Milne, who grew up rather annoyed that his childhood name had been turned into a fictional character by his book writing father. Now it’s even weirder that McGregor is playing a grown up Robin (but not the real one, the fictional one!) This is basically Hook, wherein the eternal child left, grew up, and came back to Never Never Land, erm, the Hundred Acre Wood. Happily, this film isn’t as disjointed as Hook and instead it’s kind of straightforward, if somewhat unoriginal, tale of the workaholic dad finds his inner child via magic.

Winnie the Pooh and friends characterizations are faithful to the source. The opening scene of kid Robin saying goodbye to his friends seems like a live action translation of the classic stories. The grown up Robin is a bit cliché but McGregor is such a good actor he makes even dopey clichés interesting. There’s a real fun scene where Robin stuffs Winnie in his shirt and boards a train, trying to keep the yammering bear hidden. It’s also enjoyable when Robin gets to the Hundred Acre Wood and while he starts off annoyed, eventually he cuts lose and plays pretend.

It’s a bit a mixed when the characters are in the real world but Atwell’s shocked look at seeing talking stuffed animals is hilarious. Yet it’s frustrating to see Winnie the Pooh characters in a madcap chase across the city just like how too many other kids movies end with madcap chases across the city. The characterization and voices is spot on and some of Eeyore’s depressed lines are downright hilarious.

The character’s designs translated to live action is a tad wonky as they don’t have the expressiveness of the classic Disney animated versions. Their colours are frankly too washed out as Winnie’s classic Disney look is bright orange and yellow but here he’s a faded yellow which just seems unnecessary. Heck, even on the movie’s poster Winnie is the bright orange and yellow unlike what he looks like in this film. There are some creaky bits overall it is so darn charming that this movie succeeds at being a carefree adventure.

While Spy Who Dumped Me is at its best when it’s being nasty and violent, Christopher Robin is at its best when it’s like the classic Winnie the Pooh stories. Dumped can be a distractingly amusing trifle but Robin can be transcendently magical.