Amazon has countless of its own content, including comedies – both movies and TV shows – and many libraries with content across multiple genres. Yes, some of the movies and shows on Prime Video require an extra subscription to view. But if you need a good comedy to watch this month, three comedies on Prime Video to watch in July without add-ons include these hits. All of these will have you laughing.
My Spy: The Eternal City (2024)
The sequel – titled My Spy: The Eternal City – to the original 2020 movie My Spy, once again features our favourite slimy duo of Dave Bautista, who plays the self-centred superspy J J, and Chloe Coleman, the snotty nine-year-old with a heart of gold whose family he and his CIA team are told to trail. In the first, light-hearted spy comedy, J J is a former US Special Forces soldier working with the CIA, but first finds his match with a girl a third of his size. She turns out to be a sassier 14-year-old called Sophie, and his step-daughter, on a school trip to Rome (perhaps My Spy: City of Love is in the making?). Once again, the superspy gets caught up in a terrorist plot.
My Spy was a perfectly frothy movie with a winning ‘creepy hunky operative who softens due to adorable kiddo’ formula, and you can expect more of the same from My Spy: The Eternal City, only if ‘Eternal City’ naturally invokes ravishing buildings in Italy. This is, of course, not an Oscar contender, but the solid chemistry between the two leads and the sweet story is exactly the kind of fizzy fun you would want for a summer family film fest that hits moderately high and gently soars, if not high-flying. This is definitely one with a PG-13 rating that you can happily put on for tykes-at-large.
Stream My Spy: The Eternal City on Amazon Prime Video.
Sausage Party: Foodtopia (2024)
Stream Sausage Party: Foodtopia on Amazon Prime Video.
Billy Madison (1995)
Billy Madison is arguably one of the best movies from Adam Sandler’s 1990s heyday and one of the era’s – if not his finest comedy to date. It’s also one of his first two movies after being fired from Saturday Night Live, and the success of this one and Happy Gilmore (1996) paved the way for his much more invasive Happy Madison production company. He’s a sweet, heartwarming (though arguably racist) comedy about a 27-year-old slacker, slacker Billy (Sandler), who thrives because his father, Brian Hackett (Darren McGavin), has so much money he can just hang out by the pool with his buds swilling beer and smoking joints all day. When he discovers his dear old dad doesn’t think he’s ready to take over the Hackett International empire, and that dad also paid his way through all those years of school, little Billy vows to fast-track his way straight through every grade so he can really graduate and prove himself worthy.
Who knows, he’s a fish-out-of-water in kindergarten as well as 12th grade – and a bit of a born weirdo for any age of kid. He’s skating by, and his father’s underling, the short-sighted Eric Gordon (a slimy Bradley Whitford), is betting it; he’ll do anything to make sure Billy does flunk out, so he can grab control from Grandpa himself. What with its quotable dialogue, its scenes nearly pre-scripted for the memes of today, its wholesale rep amounting to good guy/bad guy (good guy wins), and a fundamental sense of emotional satisfaction – how can Billy do this? Because that’s who he is! – Billy Madison was not only a pop-culture phenomenon when it came out 29 years ago, but it remains today one of the signature films of the decade in which it appeared – a classic that’s worth watching again and again.
Stream Billy Madison on Amazon Prime Video.