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Canberra Today 14°/16° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Review / ‘The Spy Who Dumped Me’ (MA) *and a half

REVIEWS of some movies present more reasons to dismiss with faint praise than merely to deploy them into the nearest dumpster. The only reason not automatically to consign writer/director Susanna Fogel’s debut feature movie spoofing the 1977 Bond film to that fate is that it’s a spoof and spoofs have an obligation to take the mickey out of their origins.

Fogel’s film runs for 111 minutes. Twice during the closing credits, it comes back to recall and spoof earlier moments. Occasionally, it delivers moments to remember, particularly a trapeze sequence performed by one of its two heroines and a statuesque beauty fitted with an electronic left eye – we can only surmise that somebody thought it might make a useful addition to the collection of close shaves and improbable escapes from danger that form the film’s only purpose.

Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon play Audrey and Morgan, 30-ish New Yorker gals who get a surprise when Audrey’s ex-boyfriend (Justin Theroux) shows up in their apartment seeking help to deliver a data stick which may or may not be hidden on or within one of the girls or somebody else; in any event, a package of tremendous political importance.

What follows is a gallivant through selected European capitals punctuated by scads of shooting, punching, traffic breaches and close-ups of characters signifying fear to the max by exposing their tonsils and screaming. If that’s what you feel like watching, go for it. Just don’t expect any of it to make sense. Remember, it’s a spoof. You may even laugh a bit.

At all cinemas

 

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Dougal Macdonald

Dougal Macdonald

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