Dustin: Hi, and welcome to “Spoiler Warning,” where I'm Chevy Chase, and you're not. I'm actually not Chevy Chase, though (thank goodness) -- I'm Dustin, and with me for this look at the smash 1985 comedy Spies Like Us is Laura Redfern.

Laura: ::bows:: I'm not Chevy Chase, either, but I'll do my best to offer outrageous facial expressions at appropriate moments -- which will be totally lost on our internet audience but will nonetheless be hilarious, I assure you.

Dustin: Okay, so the plot of Spies Like Us comes out something like this: Austin Millbarge (Dan Aykroyd) and Emmett Fitz-Hume (Chevy Chase) are low-level grunts that get caught cheating on a State Department Service test. Rather than being punished, they find that they're being rewarded for their actions by being made into spies, which is what they wanted in the first place. But the kicker is that they're really being used as decoys to protect a real team of spies in the field that's trying to capture a Soviet ICBM for use in testing the Air Force's "Star Wars" program. In theory, hilarity ensues as Aykroyd and Chase bumble their way aimlessly through Afghanistan and the USSR, trying to figure out what they're supposed to be doing.

Laura: Wow, that was very well summarized, my friend.

Dustin: My secret? I pre-write my synopses. Only my hairdresser knows the truth.

Laura: Oh, I thought you got them from IMDB, like I do…

Dustin: Oddly enough, IMDB didn't have one for this movie. Hey, movie nerds! Come here and use this one!

Laura: Yea! I double-dog-dare ya'! Oh sorry, wrong movie. Anyway, add in a few classic 80s jokes, a whole lot of corny Chevy Chase / Dan Aykroyd-type humor, and a few memorable cameos, and you pretty much have Spies Like Us in a nutshell.

Dustin: So, this movie befuddled me a bit -- I used to watch it a lot back in my middle-school years (as a side note, this was the first time I'd ever seen the non-edited for television version, which was amusing). I thought it was really great back then, but it seems not quite so to me now.

Laura: You know, I was thinking the same thing as I was watching it again this time around -- the jokes just seemed kind of corny and the overall comedy element fell a little flat. In truth, I was mildly disappointed.

Dustin: I'll label it as something that "seemed a good idea at the time." Not unlike several Madonna songs from the same time period.

Laura: I mean, for example, take the ridiculous fur coats they wear when they get into Russia. Momentarily funny, but essentially just way overdone. Maybe I'm overanalyzing, but I was thinking, “What the heck is that? Some kind of mix between a poodle and a muskrat?”

Dustin: Yeah, possibly. Although he's not here with us now, it's worth mentioning that D.J. thinks there's such a thing as a "Chevy Chase" factor, which states that the comedic properties of anything that Chase was in degrade exponentially over time. That may be true, it's certainly not Dan Aykroyd's fault; he's there doing his usual Dan Aykroyd thing, running of streams of deadpan technical stuff. Dan Aykroyd.

Laura: Good point, and I like D.J.'s theory. Seems to run true as I bring other Chevy Chase movies to mind... The only really quotable part that I remembered from this movie was the "Doctor, Doctor" scene, which is still pretty funny, if, again, overdone.

Dustin: I'm pretty sure that the only things that lot a little laugh out of me were the bits of dialogue that were actually new to me from the TV version. Example:

Chase: What's that?
Aykroyd: It's a dickfer.
Chase: What's a dickfer?
Aykroyd: It's for peeing.

Laura: Ah, yes, that was my other favorite line...

Dustin: In itself, not a really funny line, but it caught me by surprise.

Laura: Me, too! That's why I liked it. The rest was very predictable.

Dustin: Yeah, and a lot of the supporting cast was kind of ham-fisted in their acting. I don't really think I have anything bad to say about Donna Dixon, but the rest of the troupe was generally unremarkable. Although it's notable that Frank Oz makes an appearance, which is great, and Bob Hope’s cameo was actually his last appearance in a film.

Laura: Nice bits of trivia, there, D-Grove! I also thought it was amusing that Dan Aykroyd's wife played Chevy Chase's girlfriend in the movie... The BB King cameo was kind of a throwaway, though, wasn't it? "Why don't you gentlemen have a Pepsi?"

Dustin: That was BB King? How did I miss that?

Laura: I actually looked him up because I thought maybe he was the celeb endorsement for Pepsi at the time, which would make that line more funny -- but turns out he wasn't, so what the heck...?

Dustin: Well, the other two guys with him are filmmakers Joel Cohen and Sam Raimi, both of whom I recognized. Oh, segue opportunity! I was going to mention that the other reason that the film might feel overwrought is that it's a product of John Landis. A lot of his work from this period feels the same way.

Laura: Wow, I bow to your mad skills in detangling the incestuous web of movie trivia! You must kick ass at "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon." So, do you think there is any kind of overall "message" to this film, or is it all just so much 80s comedy fluff?

Dustin: Nah, I don't think there's an overall moral, if that's what you're getting at -- although you can draw one about the military-industrial complex calling the shots and not caring about the citizens they're there to protect. Let me ask you this -- as a person more or less the same age as me, having had your formative years during the Reagan-era cold war, do you get a sort of warm fuzzy feeling about the USSR being big and bad and very much intact?

Laura: Kind of harks back to a simpler era in so many ways, doesn't it? Just think -- when we had to memorize countries on the world map, those four simple letters covered a whole lot of real estate, whereas the unfortunate children of today have to memorize country names that are impossible to spell. Ah, and we had high tops and MC Hammer pants, too -- those were the days...

Dustin: Yeah, and a sturdy pair of Converse Chuck Taylors didn't cost $40. Damn those emo kids, mucking with the laws of supply and demand! Those little buggers wouldn't have the first clue what to do with this movie; it's so influenced by current events of the 80s.

Laura: Actually, I took away a more shallow message from this flick than you have come up with -- the message I got was, "Let's end the cold war by all having sex and/or playing RISK!" Yeah, they probably wouldn't even understand the irony in the final board game playing scene, since they didn't grow up with the concept that the Russians are the bad guys....

Dustin: ::sigh:: I say we wrap this up and go drink to simpler times. Any last thoughts?

Laura: Well, in sum, Spies Like Us is a fun movie to leave on in the background when you are doing your Saturday chores around the house and nothing much else is on TV. But sitting down to watch it as the evening's entertainment after pizza will most likely leave you wandering off to the kitchen for dessert before they get out of Pakistan. Fun, but there are more memorable 80s flicks.

Dustin: Yup. Let's go have a Pepsi.