One problem with this movie right from the start is the title – trying too hard to be funny. “The Spy who Dumped Me” is a reference to the movie “The Spy Who Loved me” starring Roger Moore from 1977. As soon as any movie tries too hard to be funny it will fail as a comedy and unfortunately most of the one-liners in this story from Kate McKinnon fall flat because they seem like she is trying too hard to be funny – and that never works.

What everyone has learned in the last 43 years is how rare it has been where a cast member of Saturday Night Live has gone on to be a huge success in the movie business. The obvious rare exceptions to this are Eddie Murphy who was a major success in 48 hours, Beverly Hills Cop and Trading Places. John Belushi’s break out role was in Animal House and The Blues Brothers with Dan Aykroyd. Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd were a big hit with the Ghost Busters franchise and Chevy Chase had some early hits with Fletch and a few Vacation movies. Since those early years getting a huge breakout role from SNL – has not really happened since then and this is despite having some extremely talented cast members: Kate McKinnon and Kristen Wiig being two of all time best. The problem is that being extremely successful on a show like SNL does not necessarily translate into a great movie role. A great movie role has more to do with a great idea, great writer and luck than anything else. This is the first co-starring role for McKinnon and while there were some flashes of brilliance from her in this movie, the screenplay was not nearly as as good as she deserves.

As far as this film I thought the story was too “all over the place” and trying to hard to not only be funny but different. Different is great, but not if trying to be different makes the story ridiculous.

Kate McKinnon’s co-star Mila Kunis was good in her role and she has been very likable in all the movies I have seen her in – but unfortunately the script for this movie should have had about 20 more re-writes before it was green-lighted.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this film are a low 37% and I agree with this rating and I do not recommend this movie.