Attitude meets espionage.
2002-10-31
$70.0M
97 min
When the Switchblade, the most sophisticated prototype stealth fighter created yet, is stolen from the U.S. government, one of the United States' top spies, Alex Scott, is called to action. What he doesn't expect is to get teamed up with a cocky civilian, World Class Boxing Champion Kelly Robinson, on a dangerous top secret espionage mission. Their assignment: using equal parts skill and humor, catch Arnold Gundars, one of the world's most successful arms dealers.
Hadn't seen this since it was released on DVD and... pretty much remember it being as mediocre as it was back then. Normally with these buddy films, you have one character who is off-kilter while the other is more serious, but here you had both off-kilter. Had this been today, would've been a good opportunity to be a spoof of Mission: Impossible; cast a normally serious actor to play opposite the outlandish character. 3.0/5
Annoying watch, probably won't watch again, and can't recommend.
I like Eddie Murphy, I usually depend on him to carry movie given he's such a big personality. Unfortunately the character he is playing is every bit as annoying as Owen Wilson and that is amplified as, like I said, Eddie Murphy is a big personality and this character doesn't call for any nuance.
Malcolm MacDowell does a his great creepy villain vibe, and Famke Janssen ("Golden Eye": Xenia Onatopp) makes a great spy: I wish she had done more of it.
The majority of this movie is Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson playing some stupid characters and getting into situations that they can barely handle most of the time.
It definitely doesn't feel like a "spy movie" the same way that someone knocking over a set of steel plate armor doesn't. This is much closer to an action-comedy, maybe similar to "Rush Hour", but not as good.
I'm not saying there isn't anything to enjoy here, I'm just saying you can flip through Eddie Murphy's filmography to find a better movie, and there are a lot of other movies out there to see.
