My Spy The Eternal City wants to be two films at once, and it spends its running time apologizing to each for the other. One is a family comedy about a veteran CIA agent and the teenager he has taken under his wing. The other is a spy thriller with a nuclear plot aimed at the Vatican. Peter Segal directs this sequel to the 2020 film, and the seam between the two shows within minutes. Somewhere before the cameras rolled, somebody should have asked who was meant to buy the tickets.

The setup takes one sentence. JJ, played by Dave Bautista, reunites with his protégé Sophie, played by Chloe Coleman, to stop a catastrophic nuclear scheme against Vatican City. That is an odd hook for a children’s comedy, though it could still carry a light adventure. The trouble starts when the film raises the stakes, drops the cozy buddy routine and heads for Bond-style globetrotting and bigger action, which is what earned it a PG-13 in the United States. Roger Ebert’s site put the result bluntly: too silly for adults, yet way too grown up for kids. I can’t argue. A parent who brings a young child for the jokes will sit through scenes that belong to a colder, harder picture.

The film is at its best when it forgets the plot and simply watches its two leads. Bautista has the frame of a man who cannot enter a room unnoticed, and most of the laughs come from setting that bulk against a sharp-tongued teenager. Coleman gives Sophie some bite without turning her into an irritant. Together, they work. Separate them, or bury them under briefings about the scheme, and interest drains away fast. The bond between a veteran agent and the protégé he has trained is also the only part of the story that feels personal, because whatever is at stake between these two matters long before any bomb does.

Anna Faris, as Nancy, looks like she is having a good time, and the mood spreads. Troubled Productions made the same point: the cast has good chemistry, and a few jokes genuinely land. Flula Borg, as Crane, is a decent foil for Bautista, and he gets his laughs without demanding screen time the script cannot spare. These are short bursts, but they are what you remember on the way out.

Then there is everyone else. Kristen Schaal as Bobbi, Ken Jeong as David Kim, Taeho K as Collin, Billy Barratt as Ryan, Craig Robinson as Connelly and Tamer Burjaq as Boris fill out the credits, and most of them seem to arrive with one trait or one gag and leave with the same one. Jeong and Robinson are the clearest case, since their names alone promise a looser, funnier film than the one we get. A comedy that leans this hard on its performers should give them something to play beyond a function in the plot. Watching comic talent used as set dressing is the part that stung me most.

Segal’s direction is where the unevenness hurts. The action is serviceable and rarely more. It moves from one big scene to the next without much invention, and the comedy never settles whether its job is to puncture the danger or to stand beside it. One review singled out an excruciatingly awful sequence. That is a harsh verdict, but a film that swings between jokes and menace this abruptly will sooner or later land one wrong, and when it does the whole room feels it. At 101 minutes it is not long, yet the mismatch has plenty of time to wear on you.

The title promises the Eternal City, and a spy film built around the Vatican starts with an obvious advantage. I never felt the film was interested in the place beyond the name on the poster. A threat to one of the most recognizable sites on earth should feel like it is happening somewhere specific, with streets and crowds and a sense of what would be lost. Here the location works mostly as a label, and for a story that wants to be a big international adventure it feels oddly stationary.

Critics have not agreed, and it is easy to see why. OutNow called the film harmless and predictable, which is about right. Some viewers will take the warmth of the cast and forgive the rest. Others will keep tripping over the shifts in mood. I land in the middle, without much enthusiasm. The leads are good company, a few jokes work, and a couple of the supporting players deserve better material. But the film never explains why JJ and Sophie had to come back for a plot like this one. What stays with you is the pairing of a very large man and a very unimpressed teenager. The nuclear scheme around them barely registers by comparison, and I suspect the filmmakers know it.