My Spy The Eternal City is the not-so-long-awaited sequel to My Spy. The original film, which starred Dave Bautista as a CIA agent teamed with Chloe Coleman as a precocious 9-year-old girl, worked well within the formula of action hero and child. Schwarzenegger had Kindergarten Cop, Diesel had The Pacifier, The Rock had The Game Plan, Jackie Chan had The Spy Next Door, and now Bautista has My Spy. Most of these films never got sequels, and for good reason. However, director Peter Segal returns to turn My Spy into a franchise with disappointing results.

This sequel brings back Bautista and Coleman as JJ and Sophie, respectively. JJ has gotten used to being Sophie's stepfather, but Sophie reaches a rebellious age in her adolescence. She changes and becomes more concerned with asking the boy she has a crush on to dance. This is a good setup for a sequel, but the problem with My Spy The Eternal City is how it struggles to balance serious action with a childish premise. The original film had the same problem of being a PG-13 action film with a silly concept. This film, however, is committed to the action genre and doesn't do it well.

The opening act sends our characters on a school trip, with JJ as chaperone. It takes a while for the villain plot to connect to the main story, but once it does, our movie is in motion. The premise feels like a less fun version of Spider-Man: Far From Home . Far from Home worked because it balanced the tone between fun and serious. My Spy The Eternal City doesn’t work because the humor generally feels poorly timed. The sequences lack tension to begin with, but once a joke is thrown in, all tension disappears.

With the first act feeling like a Disney Channel coming-of-age adventure comedy, the transition into this action-thriller plot feels odd. The screenplay from writers Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber, and Segal intentionally ups the stakes from the first film. While it makes sense to up the stakes in a sequel, it still feels like we’re watching a cheaper version of a better film, especially with how it weaves its childish plot together. Parts of the finale feel inspired by Mission: Impossible – Fallout , with the film’s desperate desire for a giant nuclear plot feeling particularly out of place here.