Dave Bautista’s My Spy Rotten Tomatoes Score Is Out

Dave Bautista’s long-awaited family comedy My Spy is streaming on Amazon today and, with the release, review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes has an initial verdict. That verdict is…well, it’s fine. With 51% of critics giving it a favorable review and 61% of audiences, the movie is neither a huge hit nor a giant bomb. It seems likely to help Bautista’s star as a solo leading man, if only because he managed to turn in a charming enough performance to keep the tired premise from seeming like a slog. It’s hard to know exactly what Amazon was expecting, though, since it seems likely that they mostly bought the movie because it’s likely to drive conversation and engagement during these lean times for new content.

The idea of big-budget summer movies coming to home release is exciting for fans, especially as movie theaters and studios are being forced to rethink their rollout strategies amid a new spike in coronavirus cases. For Bautista, though, it was a bit of a disappointment that the movie didn’t get to try its luck on the big screen.

“I want to know when I’m going back to work. I’m losing opportunities that I had,” Bautista recently said during a remote appearance on the Inside of You Podcast with Michael Rosenbaum. “My film My Spy that should have been released was not obviously able to be released into theaters, and I was really proud of it, because it’s a fun film, it’s a family film. It’s the first film I developed.” He added, “Eventually it will be released, but I wanted it to have a fighting chance in the theaters because I was pretty proud of it. I am proud of it.”

The movie might still get a limited theatrical release — the original report suggested that in addition to Amazon, drive-ins could rent the movie if they wanted to — but the landscape of moviegoing in 2020 is a rapidly-changing one.

My Spy, which also stars Kristen Schaal and Ken Jeong, sees Bautista as a spy who goes undercover to watch a family, only to be foiled rather quickly by their nine-year-old daughter, played by Big Little Lies‘ Chloe Coleman. The girl then blackmails Bautista’s character into teaching her how to be a spy. The film is directed by Peter Segal with a script from Jon and Erich Hoeber.

Bautista’s upcoming projects include Zack Snyder-directed Netflix zombie movie Army of the Dead, James Gunn and Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and director D.J. Caruso’s The Killer’s Game, where Bautista will play world-weary assassin Joe Flood.

Have you had a chance to watch My Spy? Let us know what you think in the comments!