My Spy The Eternal City succumbs to its adolescent growing pains
We can only hope this was a fun Roman holiday for the cast and crew.

Given how nebulous the notion of a “hit film” is when it comes to streaming releases, particularly for releases from the barren year of 2020, it’s hard to think of a reason to sequelize My Spy. The film was originally intended for a big screen release before the theatrical shutdown led STX Entertainment to sell the distribution rights to Amazon Studios, which does not publicly share its metrics for measuring its streaming content’s success or failure. So we don’t know exactly how well My Spy (a cute enough film that served as Dave Bautista’s obligatory vehicle in which he’d play opposite a child—a not-so-proud cinematic tradition for ripped action stars) performed, but its limited appeal could only become muddied as co-star Chloe Coleman ages out of the “muscleman’s precocious foil” role.
Perhaps four years between films was simply too much for a fledgling attempt at franchising, but My Spy The Eternal City bears all the hallmarks of a sequel with nowhere to go and nothing on its mind. The change in setting from Chicago to Italy, the new film’s primary selling point, seems more like an enticement to bring back returning talent than a creative decision necessary to tell an interesting story. After all, what is a Roman vacation for if not to take in the sights and leave behind such petty concerns as plot, humor, and excitement?
Four years after JJ (Bautista) entered her life as a surrogate father figure, Sophie (Coleman) has graduated from childish pursuits like spy training to pursue a screenwriter’s favorite hackneyed obsession for teenage girls: a boy (played by Billy Barratt), for whom she has joined the school choir in hopes of getting his attention. When said choir is invited to Rome to sing at the G7 Summit, the now comfortably domestic JJ volunteers to chaperone the trip, only to have his repeated attempts to come off as a cool dad fail to win over Sophie or her peers. But when Sophie’s friend Collin (Taeho K), incidentally the son of CIA Director Kim (Ken Jeong), is kidnapped by JJ’s former spy rival (Flula Borg), JJ and Sophie must set aside their mutual angst to save him.
Where My Spy had the benefit of a relatively tight narrative with clear emotional throughlines for its two leads, The Eternal City lacks any sort of engine to drive its characters’ arcs. JJ is content to be a desk jockey at this point in his life, so while Sophie begrudges his attempts to connect with her, he is not a farcically suffocating presence, nor does he pursue action glory to prove he’s cool again. He’s just kind of there, and that’s apparently enough of a sin to cause strife and require an adventure of reconnection. Furthermore, Sophie’s clichéd high school dramatics don’t conflict with her developing action competence, so the teenage angst that dominates JJ and Sophie’s relationship does little to hamper the action shenanigans in store for them, to the point where there’s a pretty clear demarcation between the Sophie-centric first act, the JJ-focused second, and a third that leaves Sophie’s character arc atrophied.