User Reviews

The dopey, deadpan character sculptured by Leslie Nielsen is back in a "James Bond-esque" comedy as agent WD 40. There are more gag misfires in this movie, than a parking lot full of dead batteries. However, he's such a likeable guy, you can make it over the hump.

Unfortunately, with the exit of the mad geniuses (The Zucker Bros. & Jim Abrahms), there's little here in this script to wave the pom-poms about. It's all been done too many times before.

Of honourable mention is a priceless, very quick cameo with Pat Morita, which is an absolute gem. There are other assorted scenarios that came off well, too. See it if you must on a rainy Sunday, but this is pretty old, borrowed and blue.

From the same mold as the "Naked Gun" series, "Spy Hard" stars everyone's favorite bumbling hero Leslie Nielson as a not-so-secret agent, WD-40, who stumbles his way through another slampooning chaotic comic story. Sniping at everything from "Speed" to "Home Alone" and built around the James Bond flicks, "Spy Hard" features lots of babes and bunches of bit part celebs with nonstop gags and off-the-wall humor. Only for those who are into wacky for the sake of wacky. (C+)

I've seen that this film has got mostly bad reviews on this website, and i heard that at the time of this movies release, it didn't do well in the box office and was also poorly received, in my opinion though, they are ALL wrong!

This is a great film, you can clearly see that it tries to live up to the great heights of the Naked Gun series, and it has a real go at it, but seriously, what will ever beat The Naked Gun, in comedy anyway...?

There are lots of good gags in the film but i'm not going to spoil it for you, just buy the DVD (VHS if your old fashioned!) and find them out for yourself, it will be worth it believe me!

I would recommend this to any Leslie Neilson fan (like me!) or anyone needing a good laugh....

8/10

Spy Hard General Rancor is threatening to destroy the world with a missile he is hiding at his secret base. But to complete his goal, he needs a special computer chip, invented by the scientist Prof. Ukrinsky. Special Agent Dick Steele is assigned to the case, in order to prevent the worst. He teams up with Ukrinsky's daughter Veronique, who happens to be a KGB agent.

Cast Includes... Leslie Nielson and Andy Griffith.

'Spy hard' is basically Naked Gun 4 with different character names and less laughs. Spy hard veers off course and Dick Steele travels to so many different locations that we lose track and don't end up caring. So, In the end, 'Spy Hard' does have some quality laughs but doesn't live up to any of Nielson's other spoofs.

2.5/4

PG13- crude/sexual humor and some comic, fake violence.

Leislie Nielsen again , he plays a super Agent , Dick Steele , finding in retirement , he's called for a new mission . He'll fight against General Raucov (Andy Griffith) for world control and being only helped by a beautiful spy (Nicolette Sheridan) .

The picture is the usual ¨spoof¨ or parody featured by Nielsen with similar lunatic characters , quirky roles and strange elements of the predecessors ; thus , it is surrealist , hilarious , extreme and sometimes gross-out . There're gags each fifty seconds . The film is formed by innumerable comical set-pieces and a myriad of unimaginative parodies where the wacky humor and laughs are continuous . The pioneers of these kinds of comedies are the popular trio ZAZ (Jim Abrahams , Jerry Zucker , David Zucker) but here the formula is a little worn-out . The amusement and fun result to be for finding out the numerous cinematic references that successively appear , such as : the credits title of ¨James Bond¨ movie , ¨In the line of fire¨ (Nielsen playing Clint Eastwood lookalike), ¨Pulp Fiction¨ (like Travolta), ¨Sister Act¨(performing a nun , Woopy Goldberg alike), ¨Speed¨ , ¨True Lies¨, ¨Die Hard¨, ¨Home Alone¨ , ¨Dennis the Menace¨ (where acts the same kid , Mason Gamble) and ¨Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid¨ in which acting Paul Newman-alike and riding his bicycle , he plays a bewildering scene under Burt Bacharach music with smile to roar with laughter . Besides , there are several cameos and special interventions as Pat Morita (recently deceased ), Mr.T (as A-Team member) , Alexandra Paul (Baywatch) , Hulk Hogan , Robert Culp , Fabio.. The motion picture will appeal to absurd and unruly comedy enthusiastic.

I've seen a few of Leslie Nielsen's spoof movies that were, indeed, funny for the most part such as his role as Dracula or in the takeoff of The Fugitive. However, this one - a parody of the James Bond film - just didn't have the quality or quantity of belly laughs, or laughs at all. It relies too much on slapstick and tired, overused jokes. To be fair, there are some funny scenes and parodies of other films but just not enough of them. The best part of the movie may have been the opening credits, which was an excellent takeoff on the memorable Bond openings.

I also thought they overdid the irreverence on the convent scene. It's typical Hollywood in which nuns and priests are portrayed as the opposite of what they are supposed to be (nuns with machine guns and disrespectful language??! Let's not overdo the satire.)

Well, at least it wasn't boring and it's wasn't overly long at just 81 minutes.

Okay, this isn't the most intellectual comedy ever made. Okay, it really is a stupid comedy--I'll have to break down and admit it. It's even stupider than the NAKED GUN movies or HOT SHOTS--I'll even admit that. However, despite it being so doggone stupid, it did make me laugh and that IS important. Plus, while this film isn't great by any stretch, it is (thank goodness) a lot better than some of the truly awful comedies starring Leslie Nielsen--such as REPOSSESSED--which I nominate as one of the most unfunny films in history! The bottom line is if you need a laugh, this film will get it unless you are dead or a lawyer.

Dick Steele, Agent WD-40 (Leslie Nielsen) is assigned by his director (Charles Durning), to stop the evil General Rancor (Andy Griffith) from destroying the world. WD-40 believed Rancor was dead and he teams up with the hot KGB agent Veronique Ukrinsky (Nicollette Sheridan) to find Rancor and save the world.

The brainless "Spy Hard" is another spoof with Leslie Nielsen in the lead role in the same style of "Naked Gun". There are gags with James Bond films, "Speed" an "Home Alone". Unfortunately the style of Jim Abrahams and David Zucker is only reasonable and the film is not as funny as should be. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Duro de Espiar" ("Hard to See")

If you like Leslie Nielsen, you'll like this movie. Simple as that. It may as well be a Naked Gun sequel. It's exactly the kind of humour you'd expect. Lowbrow, absurdist, and often physical comedy. It's like a live-action cartoon.

If you're watching a comedy movie because you want to laugh then this movie will do the trick.

For fans of: MacGruber, The Naked Gun, Scary Movie, Austin Powers.

Some really funny moments, but it has such a cheap feel to it. There's no flare to the cinematography, and the whole thing feels like it's on a small scale unlike the movies it's paying homage to/spoofing, and it really does detract . Overall, there's just something missing.

If the names Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer don't ring a bell, perhaps their directorial efforts for films such as Vampires Suck, Disaster Movie, Meet the Spartans, Epic Movie and Date Movie may be more familiar with just how consistently bad they were, following a rote formula of making fun of genre film franchises that somehow wasn't really funny, with more misses than hits with their gags. That formula also states to chalk up a long list of impersonators and to lampoon everything that's pop culture at the moment, and to string a series of bad gags to make up what's essentially some semblance of a story, not.

But it wasn't all that bad to begin with. Early in their career they're responsible for writing the Scary Movie franchise, and made their debut with writing Spy Hard, a film that starred the late Leslie Nielsen, and I suppose back then there was enough budget for the filmmakers to hire bona fide stars such as Ray Charles, Hulk Hogan, the male model Fabio, Mr T and even the late Pat Morita of Karate Kid's Mr Miyagi fame, before the flops spell out the hiring of impersonators (no offense to the profession) since I would believe the stars wouldn't want to go touch these productions with a ten foot pole given a regressing track record.

I've always associated Leslie Nielsen with his better known Naked Gun series, and while his brand of comedy had gone beyond detective Frank Drebin, somehow Nielsen is quite the enigma, and becomes a character in his own right no matter what role he gets to play. Cue the signature blank stares, the innuendos and the physical slapstick comedy that he's perfected, that you'll know you're in for a hoot no matter how bad the story is. Here his Agent WD-40 aka Dick Steele (OK, so here's the cat out of the bag for friends who wonder why "Dick Steel" was a handle I used - dropping the last "e" in Steele for more "bite" during my online gaming days) is the quintessential spoof-Bond, with mysterious charisma and suave to win over the femme fatales, and gets the job done with questionable, unorthodox methods.

Yes, I suppose one of the easiest way to spoof a film or a franchise is to set the sights on James Bond. After all, we have Johnny English and Austin Powers to come after this, so there's plenty of room actually for more of such wannabes who have their equivalent of a theme song, here performed in hilarious fashion and easily one of the best sequences here with a Weird Al Yankovic contribution full of inane lyrics, and keep a close eye on those gyrating silhouettes!

Like all "comedic" films by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer to follow this, Spy Hard is the precursor to their idea that comedy stems from poking fun at the box office successes of the time, and in the mid 90s, we get spoofs here from films such as Jan de Bont's Speed, Spielberg's Jurassic Park, Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, Cameron's True Lies, Wolfgang Petersen's In the Line of Fire and even Sister Act which allowed for some nuns with guns moments. While it's part of the fun spotting, or rather identify all the blatant spoof attempts, this soon wears out their welcome and like their follow up films, it seems that lessons aren't learnt from spoof fatigue. Simply put the story here dwells on Agent WD-40 stopping his arch nemesis General Rancor (Andy Griffith, or TV's Matlock), but its relentless buffoonery didn't quite survive past the halfway mark where jokes consistently fell flat and were unfunny.

Still, the best thing about the film is to watch Leslie Nielsen at his element with yet another Nielsen-isque performance, and for fans around the world, he will definitely be missed as one of the unlikeliest comedians of our generation. Rest in peace, and thank you for the memories.

Although I am a big Leslie Nielsen fan, you don't have to even know who he is to laugh hysterically at this one. First of all, I love the feel of this movie. The Secret Service headquarters is just full of secret crannies where weirdos are hiding. Especially the director's office. You always find something goofy hidden in there. In addition to Nielsen's trademark spotlight-stealing sight gags, there are many subtle insults, including the use of the Disney Animation Studio façade as the establishing exterior shot of the Agency headquarters (you can see the Seven Dwarfs in the architecture), and the fact that Agent 3.14, in addition to her number being pi, speaks with a huge French accent, even though she's Russian. I particularly love the character of Coleman. I always laugh when he sees the Rancor tape and utters a Bostonese "Gooed Gwad!". The characters are great in this. There is Steele's trusty sidekick Kabul (who has a different car in every scene), and Andy Griffith is an excellent villain. One of the best parts of this movie is Weird Al Yankovic's opening title song (spoofing Thunderball's).

For goodness' sakes, rent it if you haven't seen it yet. WATCH FOR THOSE CAMEOS!

It's good-natured enough to be inoffensive, Leslie Nielsen seems to be in pretty good form and Nicollette Sheridan is an absolute knockout! But it lacks freshness almost completely; the material is rehashed, featuring a high amount of obviousness, and some of the references to other films ("In The Line Of Fire", "Pulp Fiction") seem extremely arbitrary. (**)

Written by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer(talentless hacks as far as I am concerned) and directed by Rick Friedberg, even with the major flaws Spy Hard is not a bad movie. I will admit I was expecting it to be a lot worse, you see Friedberg and Seltzer directed Disaster Movie and Epic Movie which are two of the worst movies ever made, Meet the Spartans which fares little better and Date Movie and Vampires Suck while lame was the best of the lot(I have to re watch the Scary Movie flicks). So I was expecting something unwatchable.

So I was surprised at how moderately entertaining Spy Hard was. It does have its problems I agree. The story is predictable and rather rushed in the pace not helped by its scant length. The direction is also not the best, sometimes it is efficient but at other times it is patchy. But the worst part of Spy Hard is the juvenile and often unfunny dialogue which shows Friedberg and Seltzer's weaknesses for writing as well as directing.

That said, despite the bad dialogue at times, there are some funny sight gags and the references to the spy genre weren't too obvious and fun to spot. The film doesn't look like direct-to-video fodder either, which is a good thing. The editing mayn't be the best, but when it comes to the sets, costumes, gadgetry and some of the photography it is pretty spot on. The soundtrack is reminiscent in style to a James Bond outing such as For Your Eyes Only, and while I am not a fan of that particular score the music was fun to listen to here and I liked its style. The acting compared to any of the films Friedberg and Seltzer directed is pretty good, Leslie Nielson is great when funny and he is rather here with a fun enough character. This performance is far from his best such as Airplane and Naked Gun, but at least he didn't embarrass himself as badly as he did when he did 2001:A Space Travesty. Charles Durning and Nicolette Sheridan are decent too and there are some interesting cameos from Robert Culp and Fabio.

Overall, surprisingly watchable compared to the clap-trap I was expecting. 6/10 Bethany Cox

It seems that many James Bond parody movies have been made through the decades since the character was introduced to the silver screen in the early '60s. I haven't seen all of these spoofs, but of the ones I have seen, some of them are funny (like they're obviously supposed to be), and others not so much. Unfortunately, "Spy Hard" is one of the latter. It's not a complete disaster, but a disappointing film in the spoof genre nonetheless, with very little to be remembered by.

Dick Steele, Agent WD-40 is a retired secret agent. However, he is lured out of retirement when General Rancor, an old foe of his, has plans to destroy the world, and Steele is assigned to stop him! On his mission, Steele is joined by Veronique Ukrinsky, a young Russian agent, and together, they must make their way to General Rancor's lair! On their way, many challenges await!

The most amusing and memorable part of this movie is "Weird Al" Yankovic's theme song, a parody of James Bond themes. That song was what lead me to watch "Spy Hard", seeing its sequence from this movie in "'Weird Al' Yankovic: The Ultimate Video Collection". So, in other words, I had already seen the best part of the movie by the time I saw the whole thing. The rest of the movie is nothing special. I lightly snickered at the part when a light tap on the shoulder leads to a fist fight, but for the rest of the film, I didn't laugh at all. Aside from James Bond, several other films are also parodied, but not parodied very well. Basically, "Spy Hard" just has one mediocre gag after another, and not too many are worth mentioning. It's all extremely silly, and not in a good way.

Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer were writers for this 1996 spy spoof, and since then, they've definitely gone on to do much worse! It appears they started out mediocre (looking at "Spy Hard"), and their more recent work is a crime against humanity, proving they should not be in the comedy business! So, "Spy Hard" isn't the worst film that Friedberg and Seltzer had something to do with (it might even be the best!), but it's still not worth it, if you ask me, and I know many would agree, since it has such a low rating. Fortunately, "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery", another silly James Bond spoof, but a far superior one, was released the year after this forgettable flop.

RELEASED IN 1996 and directed by Rick Friedberg, "Spy Hard" is a spoof of James Bond flicks with Leslie Nielsen as Agent WD-40 and Nicollette Sheridan as Agent 3.14. Stephanie Romanov plays a dual role while Marcia Gay Harden is on hand as the agent's dubious secretary. Andy Griffith plays the main heavy.

The first 15 minutes are hilarious, but from there the movie settles down into quietly amusing. The tone is akin to The Naked Gun franchise with its silly humor. The movie coulda done better on the female front, but Sheridan is likable and Harden has a couple worthy scenes. Additional movies are spoofed, like "Pulp Fiction." Overall, it's a throwaway comedy, but it has its goofy charm.

THE FILM RUNS 81 minutes and was shot in Los Angeles and Burbank. WRITERS: Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer, Dick Chudnow & Friedberg.

GRADE: B

Don't get me wrong. I am a huge fan of "Police Squad! (In Color)". It's just that what made that great is exactly what is missing from this movie. In the Police Squad! series, Leslie Nielsen played a straight dead-pan character, very serious. Very little mugging to the camera, and reacted to the silliness around him with a dryness that only Jack Webb could muster.

In Spy Hard, we have a cartoonish character whose a buffoon. He mugs to the camera at every turn. He's trying to have fun with the audience. Sadly it just makes him look sad. The best thing about this movie (the 5 star moment) was the opening credits sung by Wierd Al. After that, to say it's ok is pushing it. It's bad, but not bad enough to be good. It's more like a poor-man's "3 stooges" style slapstick than anything, and I do mean totally destitute type of poor.

You would be better off seeing Airplane or Police Squad! (and the Naked Gun movies that followed) 20 times in a row. You will find the 20th showing of any of these movies more enjoyable than the first viewing of Spy Hard.

Spy Hard is a pretty entertaining film but it is a bit boring in some places. This spoof film isn't as good as Airplane or The Naked Gun. It's an okay film, not brilliant, not bad. Some scenes are just a bit pathetic to try and pull laughs but others are pretty finny. Overall, don't go in expecting an absolutely hilarious film, it's just okay.

I really hate this film, which is something I have never said about any other movie. I was ready to walk out on this film within the first 5 minutes. The only reason I didn't was because I had already handed over my hard earned money to see it. The story was complete rubbish, a mix of tired and unfunny spoofs of other films. Poor acting and casting decisions as well as some really bad jokes. If any film was going to kill off the spoof genre, this was going to be it. It is a great shame, because Leslie Nielsen has made some great films, none better that Flying High(Airplane) and The Naked Gun. There are no redeeming features in this movie at all so if you see it on a shelf in a video store, do yourself a favour and keep walking.

Only a few actors can get away with absurd humor, like Jim Carrey or Will Ferrell. Leslie Nielsen is also one of them. In Spy Hard he comes back to play the role of Dick Steele 'Agent WD-40'. Everything he touches or does goes wrong. It's a formula that works with him, due to his silly looks and strange behavior. It's not everybody's cup of tea but I like that kind of humor every now and then, especially when I'm baked. Spy Hard is full of references to other movies like James Bond, Sister Act, Home Alone, Pulp Fiction, Speed and many others. It's all done with parodies, to me it works but I can imagine other people finding it ridiculous. Spy Hard is just a bit of fun, just maybe not for everyone.

Agent Dick Steele (Leslie Nielsen) must partner up with Agent Veronique Ukrinsky (Nicollette Sheridan) to stop General Rancor (Andy Griffith) from destroying the world with a nuclear missile hidden in his secret base.

So, apart from that, I thought this movie was going to be a funny one. It wasn't, except for Weird Al Yankovic singing the opening theme song, which was quite entertaining. The rest of the film just tries way too hard to be funny which makes the film look really silly, like Police Academy for example (except that had more funny moments but there weren't many). Anyway, to sum this review up, all I can say is just don't bother watching this movie.

I don't see how anyone can not like this just a little bit. Sure it's not the greatest film in the world, but it still does justice to the spoof genre, which so many films have tried to do but failed (think Scary Movie (the 1st one, not the other 2, they were decent)).

It's not as good as the Naked Gun trilogy or Airplane, and it does recycle a few gags from there (Scary Movie 3 did this). They do this so that people who haven't seen the other films still get a variety of jokes from the other films.

The opening sequence is one of the best opening sequences I have seen in ages. They should definitely do more films like this film. 9/10.