I Spy

I Spy

I Spy wasn't really anything more than a moment's distraction. I used to watch I Spy back when it was on Nick at Nite. It was pretty much the first TV drama with an African American lead. It was shot on location all over the world as the crew traveled to one exotic location, shooting a handful of episodes there, then to another. And I liked the chemistry between the characters. Back in the 1960s, Robert Culp was Kelly Robinson, a tennis player traveling the world, playing competitively. Bill Cosby was Alexander Scott, his trainer. But of course, Kelly Robinson was really a secret agent, and Alex Scott was his sidekick. The show had some humor, but it was mostly an adventure drama.

Of course, I had no illusions that the movie would have anything to do with the TV show, other than the title and a few character names. They didn't even use the TV show theme music. I Spy hardly has any brand name recognition nowadays, especially for the 18-35 male target audience. So I have to wonder what the point was of paying for the rights to the I Spy franchise. This was just another buddy action comedy.

The movie stars Eddie Murphy as champion boxer Kelly Robinson, and Owen Wilson as Alex Scott, a second-string secret agent posing as a member of Robinson's entourage. Eddie Murphy's Robinson was a loud, obnoxious, egotistical boor, who wouldn't shut up and continually referred to himself in the third person. Owen Wilson did his usual sort of nerdy rambling thing. Between the two of them, it was chatter, chatter, chatter through the whole movie. It made me realize why movies like Rush Hour and Shanghai Noon worked, as one partner did all the talking and the other did the fighting. Murphy and Wilson's constant talking got on my nerves a bit, though their individual characters were amusing.

Murphy's Robinson was clearly used to getting his own way, and Wilson's Scott had to sort of con or seduce Robinson into compliance with fancy, high-tech spy gadgets and talk of how cool it would be to do the mission. If you like the performers, it's kind of funny, though neither of them really does anything new. It was pretty much standard issue buddy humor stuff, and clearly hoping to be some kind of franchise. Though sequels are doubtful considering the movie's box office performance. In a day and age when blockbuster movies cost $150 million and up, I Spy cost a moderately-priced $70 million. But it's box office earnings were disappointing, in the neighborhood of $36 million. I wonder what Culp and Cosby thought.