Spy-2015
Director-Paul Feig
Starring-Melissa McCarthy, Jason Statham
Scott’s Review #386
Reviewed March 20, 2016
Grade: C+
Spy is a 2015 comedy spy spoof starring funny-lady Melissa McCarthy as a loser desk CIA-analyst suddenly thrown into the field and assigned to rescue a missing agent whom she is also in love with.
Carrying the film in every way, McCarthy is very funny and adds a great deal to an otherwise formulaic, by the numbers, comedy.
As, admittedly, the “action-comedy” genre is not my favorite, I have seen much worse than Spy, and the premise is quite nice, but the second half of the film sinks into the ridiculous and is very loud and overly long.
McCarthy plays Susan Cooper, a frumpy forty-year-old woman with a decent job as a CIA analyst (she tracks the field agents cameras and warns them of impending peril), an important job, but she is deemed dispensable and a loser by the higher-ups at her job, with more important duties.
She is single, overweight, and lonely, pining after her sophisticated partner Bradley Fine (Jude Law), a field agent and stylish James Bond-type. After a mishap with Bradley thought dead, Susan goes undercover in France, Rome, and Budapest to solve the case since she will be unnoticed.
Spy is a film with a star that completely carries the film. Personally being a big fan of McCarthy’s and enjoying her performance in whatever she appears in (comedy or drama), this film needs her charisma and comic timing.
Spy contains a few laugh-out-loud moments, especially when McCarthy is forced to take on the persona of one loser after another- a divorcee with multiple cats and a wardrobe to cringe over-throw in a 1980’s perm and you’ve got a great SNL type moment.
The film itself reminds me of a long SNL skit. When McCarthy delivers her one-liners they connect and amuse.
An apparent homage to spy films and James Bond films, Spy seems closer to an Austin Powers film as it goes for more silliness, but not quite as over the top. Still, the European locales offered added elements of Bond films in a pleasant way. McCarthy as an apparent female James Bond is also kind of cute.
A noticeable negative is the unnecessary two-hour running time. With a genre of this nature, a ninety to one-hundred minute running time is all that is necessary, and any more than that and the jokes wane, become redundant, and usually teeter off into the ridiculous, which is exactly what happens with Spy.
Another problem with Spy is the supporting characters. A well-known cast including Rose Byrne, Allison Janney, Jason Statham, and Bobby Cannavale, each of these actors are cast in cartoon-like, one-note roles.
Cannavale and Byrne are the villains (Sergio and Rayna) in the plot and they play their roles in a one-dimensional way, as evil as possible, but perhaps also over-acting the parts.
This could be the fault of the director or simply what is accepted in the genre that this is. Janney- as the tough-as-nails CIA director and Statham as the dumb, temperamental, field agent also overplay their roles.
Why are all of these characters loud, unpleasant, insulting, or all of the above? The answer is it might allow better comedy to have caricatures instead of characters, but that is a debate for another time.
On the other hand, Miranda Hart as McCarthy’s sidekick Nancy, a very tall, awkward woman and Susan’s best friend is great and shares equally in the comic success that McCarthy brings.
Their chemistry is evident and a recommended second pairing would be worth exploring. Unlike the other characters, I felt myself rooting for her and wished her a love interest, though the 50 Cent romantic introduction was strange.
The plot is more or less trivial and rather unimportant in a film like this. Rationally speaking, almost everything that transpires in this film would never happen in real life, but alas, this is the movie, so one must suspend disbelief big time.
Spy is escapist fare to the max.
A hot mess if not for the wit and comic timing that McCarthy brings to the table, Spy has an interesting premise, but fails at delivering anything more than the silly formula that has existed for decades in the film comedy world. I finished the film with mixed emotions.