Spies Like Us (1985)

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]

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.

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.

Spies Like Us does have a few yuks, or at least yukettes, but there's only a semi-smidgeon of inventiveness in this ponderous farce. [16 Dec 1985, p.84]