X
- 1985
- PG
- Warner Bros.
- 1 h 42 m
- 1985
- PG
- Warner Bros.
- 1 h 42 m
Summary Two bumbling government employees think they are U.S. spies, only to discover that they are actually decoys for Nuclear War.
Directed By: John Landis
Written By: Dan Aykroyd, Dave Thomas, Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel
- 1985
- PG
- Warner Bros.
- 1 h 42 m
- 1985
- PG
- Warner Bros.
- 1 h 42 m
Spies Like Us
22
7.1
Where to Watch
Summary Two bumbling government employees think they are U.S. spies, only to discover that they are actually decoys for Nuclear War.
Directed By: John Landis
Written By: Dan Aykroyd, Dave Thomas, Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Unfavorable
Based on 9 Critic Reviews
22
11% Positive
1 Review
1 Review
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
89% Negative
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Unfavorable
Based on 9 Critic Reviews
22
11% Positive
1 Review
1 Review
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
89% Negative
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
One imagines that fans of Chase and Aykroyd will be mildly pleased with the results. As political humor, though, Spies is an uneasy blend of seriousness and farce--a picture whose antiwar theme seems designed to let its makers cash their paychecks and, at the same time, feel good about themselves. [06 Dec 1985, p.A]
Good Landis work looks like a comically heightened reality, and it scores with sharp moments in which the world is ridiculous and being American is possibly just as ridiculous. Spies Like Us, his latest, ranks with his poorest efforts, in which strange people start out in extraordinary situations and the lead characters have a pig-out; pushing for wildness, Landis gets mired in crudity (as in Animal House). [09 Dec 1985]
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 16 User Ratings
7.1
69% Positive
11 Ratings
11 Ratings
25% Mixed
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
6% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 16 User Ratings
7.1
69% Positive
11 Ratings
11 Ratings
25% Mixed
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
6% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
There are no user reviews yet. Be the first to add a review.
Spies is not very amusing. Though Chase and Aykroyd provide moments, the overall script thinly takes on eccentric espionage and nuclear madness, with nothing new to add.
There are seeds of something funny in the film's beginning and in its premise, but they are soon dissipated by so little sustained wit, and so much scenery.
Landis never bothers to account for the friendship that springs up spontaneously between these two antipathetic types, but then he never bothers to account for anything in this loose progression of recycled Abbott and Costello riffs and fumbled Strangelovean satire.
Sadly, the script is so patchy that most of the genuine laughs are squeezed into the first half; the rest is a rather tacky and confused extended joke about the nuclear arms race, which is tasteless only because it fails to be funny.
It's the kind of stuff you come up with when you're not trying very hard, and on Spies Like Us, nobody seems to be trying. And that can be very trying indeed. [09 Dec 1985, p.C3]
