Ray Pride

A funny Eddie Murphy movie: there's a high-concept pitch.

With "I-Spy," Owen Wilson's sly wake-and-bake lassitude makes an ideal comic foil to Eddie Murphy's banty-rooster cockiness; there are two scenes I won't describe where the pair are nothing less than comedic helium. Opening with an avalanche scene that seems like "XXX"-lite, "I-Spy" is zingy studio product until you get Wilson, as a second-tier spy hotshot and Murphy, as a champion boxer who refers to himself in the third person, in the same room. Wilson's drawling Texan rhythms take their own oh-so-cool time to explode upside Murphy's rat-a-tat-tat sputtering of comic ego with lines like "Please don't cut off Kelly Robinson's penis!" and "I'm blinded by ass!"

Director Betty Thomas is known for candor, but I'm more charmed by producer Jenno Topping, her partner in comic crime on this, as well as the two "Charlie's Angels" movies and "Doctor Dolittle," and "The Brady Bunch Movie." For instance, her description of why Thomas is a great partner: "It's like falling in love," the charming native New Yorker says. "She's very bright and truly insane and has tremendous energy. And she makes me laugh. Those are the same qualities I've been attracted to in the guy I've lived with for twelve years ["Project Greenlight" producer Chris Moore]. She's not afraid to be stupid or make a mistake. [My boyfriend] and she are the same person! Really! He's a total asshole!"

"She's insane," Topping continues. "She's totally out of her mind. She talks to the actors constantly during the takes." While the director says she doesn't believe in outtakes--"all the good stuff goes in the movie," Thomas says--Topping counters, "There's so much funny shit that goes on you wish people could see."

Does she counter the insanity? "I am so calm. You just have to keep repeating the mantra, at least I do, as the stupid schmuck producer who still goes to the set every day: 'The most important thing is the movie, the most important thing is the movie.' It's little decisions all day long that add up while you try to protect the integrity. I feel like that's my job, to argue with the director if you disagree and try like hell to win, but if you lose? I think you really are obligated to support the director. If you produce a movie that has nobody at the helm, you're fucked."

The movie has almost nothing to do with the original TV series, I note. "We wanted to call it something else," Topping says, adding diplomatically, "but the studio felt very strongly that we keep the title. I think they did a lot of market research and found it was a valuable title in and of itself. It was worth keeping regardless of the mislead. In some ways, because young people don't know what the show was, it's not a mislead one way or another, it's just nothing. It doesn't detract; it's just what it is. With critics and people who do know, we obviously take a big hit."

Is that just picayune or is that valid? "Totally. I totally understand why people are confused. Unfortunately, when you make a movie, you pick your battles and this is not a battle we thought we could win."

And the hyphen? That's not on the print of the film. "It makes no sense. I can't speak to the title. It's a huge bone of contention. It's such a negotiation when you make a movie, you say, 'OK, give me this, I'll give you that.' Once we realized we couldn't win, we just said fuck it."

Despite the success of their projects together, Thomas and Topping remain a classic hired-gun duo of director and producer. "All the movies that we've done that have been remakes have been generated by the studios. They are important titles for those studios. I bemoan, y'know, the paucity of good material as much as anyone else. This business is a heat-seeking missile. It's so much easier to get a movie made when the appetite is huge from the studio and when they want it no matter what, nothing can derail it." So you can't say no when they say you're the ones to get it done? "Exactly. We have turned down movies. Believe it or not, we only do stuff we think we can actually have a point of view about."

I point out that the two gut-busting scenes weren't even hinted at in the early promotion for the film. "A woman threw up next to me at the first preview. Seriously!," Topping says with wonder. "She started gagging and spittle... That scene is like magic. My hugest regret is that the television material has not been able to capitalize on the two funniest things in our movie. They're very contextual and they build."

But I was glad they were surprises. "I know," she says with winning earnestness, "but if people don't go to the goddamn movie... As a producer, that's your dream, that your best stuff has never been seen before, but if you can't get them into the theater because they don't understand what the movie is, then it doesn't do you any good."

"I-Spy" opens Friday.

(2002-10-30)

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