I Spy: Movie & DVD Review (2002)

(Originally published 2002)

Remember the mid-1960s television show "I Spy," in which Bill Cosby and Robert Culp broke the rules by becoming primetime’s first interracial crimefighting team, thus paving the way for such other shows as "Mission: Impossible" and "The Mod Squad" to hit the airwaves?

The series, which has occasionally been in reruns since it last aired in 1968, was a milestone for Cosby--it made him a star and allowed him the distinction of being the first black actor to have a leading role in a weekly television show.

But just as in Scott Silver's 1999 feature film version of "The Mod Squad," which had a hip, all-star cast and plenty of good intentions--neither of which, incidentally, was enough to overcome its weak script and soggy direction--director Betty Thomas ("The Brady Bunch Movie," "Dr. Dolittle") succumbs to the same fate in "I Spy."

The film’s title suggests a singular vision but, go figure, it has none, which isn’t a surprise when you consider it’s credited to four writers--always a red flag.

With the exception of a few memorable moments between Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson--who are, to say the least, so well-schooled in the buddy genre, they bring the movie what energy and few laughs it has--the film is mostly a drag, a second-rate effort with top-rate talent whose biggest risk seems to be a reversal of race.

Indeed, instead of Murphy taking the Cosby role, as you might expect, he plays Culp's Kelly Robinson—a middleweight boxing champ and not a tennis star, as in the series--while Wilson, blond and detached within an inch of his life, plays Cosby's Alexander Scott, now an idiot spy smitten with fellow spy, Rachel Wright (Famke Janssen), and who must use Robinson’s help to solve a case.

The case in question involves the pending sale of the Switchblade, a stolen U.S. Stealth bomber about to hit the black market in Budapest by Arnold Gundars, a sneering international arms dealer played by a sneering Malcolm McDowell in a fright wig.

Some might question the logic behind the president of the United States personally enlisting an egomaniacal boxer like Robinson to help a bumbling spy like Scott thwart the sale of an invisible, billion-dollar war plane, as is the case here, but why look for logic in a movie without any?

Besides, "I Spy" nearly knocks itself out with its strained explanation.

Grade: C