Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

The Spy Who Dumped Me 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 28, 2018

Did Melissa McCarthy kickstart a whole new subgenre with Spy? It’s not hard to draw a through line straight from that 2015 comedy to the similarly raucous and even somewhat similarly plotted The Spy Who Dumped Me, a film which ups what I called the “fish (spy?) out of water” ante in the Paul Feig opus by positing not one but two females suddenly thrust into the high octane (and equally high testosterone) world of international espionage. Much like Spy, a lot of The Spy Who Dumped Me attempts to wreak comedic havoc out of potty mouthed pronouncements about any number of things, and this film is a veritable minefield of “f” bombs. In that regard, it might be salient to note what I personally found to be the one undeniably laugh out loud moment of The Spy Who Dumped Me, a moment that relies more on smart visual pacing instead of a literal "blue streak" of dialogue. The story has already detailed the travails of Audrey Stockton (Mila Kunis), a cashier who is nursing a bruised ego after having been, well, dumped by her boyfriend — via text. Audrey’s BFF Morgan (Kate McKinnon), a woman whose surname just happens to be Freeman (she admits late in the film that she gets reservations anywhere she calls), is a no nonsense sort who has encouraged Audrey to burn all the items of erstwhile paramour Drew (Justin Theroux), who, unbeknownst to either of the girls, is some sort of agent overseas who is dodging a slew of attackers even as Audrey texts him to tell him all of his belongings are going up in flames. At any rate, to jump to the chase (in more than one manner of speaking), the women find themselves overseas to ostensibly complete a mission Drew sends them on, and amidst the nonstop (and frequently completely unnecessary) invocation of any number of non-deleted expletives, there is an absolutely hilarious little bit, where the girls, themselves being chased by a horde of bad guys, attempt to hijack a luxury automobile that has two elderly and very well dressed people about to get inside. The women push the real owners of the vehicle aside, jump in and freak out when they discover the car is a stick shift, which neither of them knows how to drive. Amid the sound of grinding gears, the cars begins to coast in slow motion down a slight incline, as the two elders walk kind of briskly next to it, pounding on the windows, trying to get inside their own car. The sedan ultimately crashes in slow motion into a magazine stand, and the entire sequence is one of the funniest things I’ve seen recently. Unfortunately, this is a rare totally guffaw provoking oasis in what is otherwise a kind of parched desert of sound and fury, often, yep, signifying nothing.

Note: There are a couple of plot points detailed below which some may feel verge on spoiler territory. Worried readers are encouraged to skip the following summary if they want to view the film "fresh".

There’s a kind of clunky structural artifice that occurs just a few minutes into this outing that may be at least momentarily confusing for some viewers watching The Spy Who Dumped Me, with a brief “one year ago” superimposed title detailing a short vignette where Drew and Audrey meet cute in a bar. The problem is, the film then segues right back to the “present day” without any warning, and so it may take a while for some to figure out that when Audrey is “ushered” into a van containing two guys who identify themselves as secret agents, it may not be exactly clear what’s going. The two agents are Sebastian Henshaw (Sam Heughan), a dashing Brit who for all intents and purposes just as well could have been named James Bond, and a fussy guy named Duffer (Hasan Minhaj), a “try hard” who seems intent on telling everyone he graduated from Harvard, whether or not that information has any bearing to what’s going on, or whether in fact the person he’s talking to has any interest in what he’s saying. Henshaw and Duffer quiz Audrey on Drew’s whereabouts, alerting her to the fact that her former boyfriend did not in fact host an NPR podcast about “jazz and economics”. The film actually returns to the "one year ago" flashback at a couple of later interstitial moments, but those "cutaways" are much more clear contextually than the segue between the first flashback and subsequent return to "now" is.

There’s also a serious lapse of logic undercutting a central plot conceit in the film, at least for those who think about things for a moment. That nonsensical element involves Drew’s real motivations, since he does in fact return to the United States, shows up at the girls’ apartment, and then encourages them to complete a mission involving (yet again) a thumb drive with important data before he is ostensibly terminated with extreme prejudice. Things are of course not as they might appear, but for those who examine these things perhaps a bit too intently (ahem), it might be a good exercise to revisit this whole scenario once certain revelations are made toward the end of the film. Without posting outright spoilers, there a huge looming “why?” hanging over the whole Drew angle, even given the questionable device of his supposedly mortal wound.

Who are the bad guys and who are the good guys is an underlying element of the film, and, again, there are certain illogical devices employed throughout the frequently overly frenetic screenplay that are never adequately developed or explained. This includes an almost throwaway moment where an expressionless model named Nadedja (Ivanna Sakhno) just ups and kills a designer (?) after she receives instructions to go after Audrey and Morgan, because it turns out that she's also a former gymnast who enjoys killing and/or torturing people. But why have her shoot the guy at the runway show? It's just one of many odd little moments in the film that admittedly don't bear on the overall plot, but which just seem gratuitous and, ultimately, kind of needless and silly.

Still, The Spy Who Dumped Me manages to elide at least some of its tonal imbalances due to some expert mugging by McKinnon and less hyperbolic but often amusing deadpan delivery from Kunis. The large cast also includes Gillian Anderson as this film's version of Q, and Jane Curtin and Paul Reiser as Morgan's concerned parents. European locales are numerous, and the film probably delivers at least chuckles with enough consistency that fans of the two stars will find this a satisfying if (sub)generic hour and a half.

The Spy Who Dumped Me 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Note: Screenshots are sourced from the 1080p Blu-ray.

The Spy Who Dumped Me is presented on 4K UHD courtesy of Lionsgate Films with a 2160p transfer in 2.40:1. This shows the same kind of detail and fine detail upticks that are regularly seen in 4K versions of 2K DIs, with a number of newly precise elements added, albeit often on picayune items like the nametag Audrey wears, which is now more legible than in the 1080p Blu-ray version. Detail on things like facial pores and, later, some wounds is also noticeably more precise looking in this version. That said, the biggest differences to me were definitely with regard to the palette, and rather interestingly Dolby Vision actually cools things off at several key junctures in this version when compared to the 1080p Blu-ray version. The whole opening sequence with Drew trying to escape the bad guys is noticeably more desaturated in the 4K iteration, to the point that it almost looks like an old hand colored black and white offering, and rather interestingly, this same desaturated look is more prevalent in some other sequences now, at least marginally more so than in the 1080p Blu-ray version, in such scenes as the big torture sequence where Nadedja has our heroines tied and shackled. This same sequence, which takes place in a dimly lit abandoned Olympics facility (at least that's what I think it's supposed to be) also offers at least some incrementally better shadow detail in this version. There are some notably warmer moments in this presentation, though, including the scenes with the girls biking through picturesque European streets, and the later, almost psychedelically colored, climax at the "circus", where the glut of purples and oranges have discernable new highlights throughout. Audrey's violet dress in this sequence also has a somewhat paler look in this version. A few isolated moments, like the scene where Audrey discovers a way to access Duffer's phone which requires a thumbprint (that's all I'm going to say on the subject) have an interesting new more buttery yellow grading.

The Spy Who Dumped Me 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Spy Who Dumped Me features an aggressive and consistently immersive Dolby Atmos track, one which offers good surround activity in both the expected action sequences (which include an early explosion that offers some really forceful LFE which pans quite impressively) as well as quieter moments, like the bar scene where Audrey meets Drew. The film has a number of fun chase sequences, including a totally manic car chase with motorcycles in pursuit that offers a glut of sonic activity spilling through all channels, but with really appealing directionality and nice placement of individual effects. A number of stylistically variant source cues are also utilized, and those also reside in the surround channels quite winningly. Aside from some of the noisier moments where dialogue is frankly not all that important, spoken lines are otherwise delivered cleanly and clearly, and the entire track boasts excellent fidelity and extremely wide dynamic range.

The Spy Who Dumped Me 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The 4K UHD disc commendably includes all of the supplements also featured as extras on the 1080p Blu-ray disc:

• Covert Operations: The Making of The Spy Who Dumped Me (HD; 11:15) is an agreeable enough EPK with behind the scenes footage and interviews.


• Gary Powell: The Action Behind the Film (HD; 9:04) looks at some of the film's fun stunts and/or fight sequences.


• Makin' Friends with Hasan Minhaj (HD; 6:46) should appeal to fans of the former Daily Show correspondent. There's a fun cameo of sorts by Ivanna Sakhno.


• Deleted Scenes (HD; 9:35)


• Outtakes (HD; 6:41)


• Off Script (HD; 6:07) features a bunch of ad libs.

The Spy Who Dumped Me 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There's some enjoyably goofy material scattered throughout The Spy Who Dumped Me, but the film is all over the place in terms of style and even content, and never seems to settle down long enough to address several unexplained plot points or develop the characters beyond the bare necessities to get them from Point A to Point B. The film is at least brisk and often extremely scenic, and Kunis and McKinnon are well matched as the bumbling duo in way over their heads. The 4K presentation definitely ups the detail ante, at least marginally, but the palette undergoes some really interesting new changes courtesy of Dolby Vision. For fans of the cast if for no one else, The Spy Who Dumped Me comes Recommended.