SPIES LIKE US (1985) * I hate to say it about someone whose work I've enjoyed so much but...this is what happens when an actor/writer gets too self-satisfied at the same time that the studio decides he's a genius and gives him too much room. Fresh from historic triumphs in The Blues Brothers and Ghostbusters, Dan Aykroyd pops back into the studio with a dumb script chock full o' little jokes that aren't funny, grabs his old television buddy Chevy Chase to goof around and make silly faces with, wastes the time of a hotshot director (John Landis), gives his entirely untalented dye-and-blow-dried faux blond wife way too many lines (i.e., any), trots out a few legends (Ray Harryhausen who is not to blame for the effects, and Bob Hope) to show he has clout now, and wastes the time and money of everyone involved-not the least the fans who made him. It would be wrong to say that it isn't funny at all, some of the sight gags (the spy test scene and the one where they pretend to be space monsters) are slightly amusing, but for every even slightly humorous bit there are thirty, no exaggeration, that are just plain stupid-far inferior entertainment to whatever the drunkest guy at your local is doing. The funniests things in it were the pictures of Reagan and Henry Kissinger, and you can view those for free on the internet with a smaller investment of time. That Aykroyd and Donna Dixon's marriage survived this debacle is a credit to their relationship, I guess.
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