Starring: Owen Wilson, Eddie Murphy, Famke Janssen, Malcolm McDowell
Directed by Betty Thomas

When I heard they were making a movie based on the television series I Spy, starring Bill Cosby and Robert Culp, I couldn't have cared less! I mean, I wasn't even born when that series came out. When I heard they were making an I Spy movie starring Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson, I was really looking forward to it.

But what a dissapointment. The plot, which is barely worth mentioning, is about some guy, (Malcolm McDowell) who steals a plane that can become invisible. The guy, is a huge boxing fan, so to get close to him, the spy people send Alexander Scott (Owen Wilson) to go undercover as boxing legend Kelly Robinson's (Eddie Murphy) assistant.

In a 'buddy movie' like this one, plot is not really a priority in making the movie good. What the hell was Lethal Weapon about? Or Bad Boys? Who cares? The point is, two guys will be yelling and swearing at each other while fighting crime. And these two guys must be very, very funny. What could go wrong with Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson at the helm?

Many things.

Owen Wilson's character has his moments, but for the most part the character is just a huge, whiny dork, which bothered me because Owen Wilson is a very funny guy. He has a very unique delivery when there are in fact jokes to be delivered. I thought he was great in Zoolander. But as if realizing the pointlessness of the movie, everything he said was without energy. He was seldom interesting to watch.

Eddie Murphy's character was for the most part obnoxious. His role was to be the stereotype dude who Owen Wilson patronizes for about an hour and a half. This is a shame. The original character of Kelly Robinson was supposed to be a big intellectual type. Why couldn't the writers work with that? Were they that uncreative that they had to follow the standard model for actual successful buddy movies? They basically tried to recreate the relationship between Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker in Rush Hour. Needless to say they failed miserably. And not to spoil the surprise, but just like in all cheesy buddy movies, the two main characters get into a fight, then get back together again to save the day. It was just so predictable, trite and... yes I'll say it... Contrived!

Why do people waste Eddie Murphy's talent these days? Eddie Murphy is easily one of the funniest men alive. Give him something to work with and you can be guaranteed solid laughs for hours. Think Shrek. People would laugh at just about anything Donkey would say, whether it was funny or not. I won't even bother mentioning classics like Coming to America, Trading Places, Delirious, Raw, The Nutty Professor...

Seeing that the writing for the movie was so crappy, why not give it some appeal? If I were working on the movie and I heard Eddie Murphy had been cast, the first question I would ask is, "How many roles can he play?" Slap a bald cap on him, give him a monocle and voila, he's the villain of the story and you've just about doubled your laughs. Next question is, "Can he play a white guy?" Laughs are tripled. And so forth, until eventually you have a movie worth seeing. Incidentally, this is what Steve Martin did when he heard Eddie Murphy was cast for Bowfinger. He reworked the script to take advantage of a talented comedian.

The movie might have been salvaged, but in my humble opinion, the directing was terrible. Even when there was a really funny scene, something would happen afterward that would just stop the laughter. Almost like an uncomfortable silence after a really bad joke. It's as if the camera was lingering on the two stars waiting for them to do or say something else really funny. But they didn't. Then we would be shown some crappy action scene. At the very least, they could have shown us some more cheesy spy gadgets than they did.

Barely worth renting, I consider this movie a waste of talent. It's too bad that after a disaster like this movie, Eddie and Owen will probably never want to speak to each other again out of sheer embarrassment. So much potential for creativity and laughs, and this is what they come up with. I hate it more with every word I write, so I'll just stop the review now.

Boo!