Spy-2015
Director Paul Feig
Starring Melissa McCarthy
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 who is suddenly thrown into the field and assigned to rescue a missing agent she is also in love with.
Carrying the film in every way, McCarthy is funny and adds to an otherwise formulaic, by-the-numbers comedy.
Admittedly, the “action-comedy” genre isn’t my favorite, and I have seen much worse than Spy, but the premise is nice; the second half, however, sinks into the ridiculous and is loud and overly long.
McCarthy plays Susan Cooper, a frumpy 40-year-old CIA analyst with a decent job as a CIA analyst (she tracks the field agents’ cameras and warns them of impending peril). Still, the higher-ups deem her dispensable and a loser, and assign her 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 leaves Bradley thought dead, Susan goes undercover in France, Rome, and Budapest to solve the case without being noticed.
Spy is a film with a star who completely carries the film.
As a big fan of McCarthy and her performances in whatever she appears in (comedy or drama), I need her charisma and comic timing here.
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 1980s perm, and 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, Spy feels closer to an Austin Powers film, leaning more into silliness, but not quite as over the top.
Still, the European locales add a pleasant Bond-film element. McCarthy as an apparent female James Bond is also 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 the jokes wane, become redundant, and usually go into the ridiculous.
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 is cast in cartoon-like, one-note roles.
Cannavale and Byrne play the villains (Sergio and Rayna) in a one-dimensional way, as evil as possible, but they may also be overacting.
This could be the director’s fault, or simply what is accepted in this genre.
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 that caricatures might allow better comedy than 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 it would be worth exploring as a second pairing. Unlike the other characters, I felt myself rooting for her and wished her a love interest, though 50 Cent’s romantic introduction was strange.
The plot is more or less trivial and unimportant in a film like this. Rationally, almost nothing that happens would ever occur in real life, but alas, this is the movie, so you have to suspend disbelief big time.
Spy is escapist fare at its most extreme.
A hot mess, if not for the wit and comic timing McCarthy brings, Spy (2015) has an interesting premise but delivers little beyond the silly formula that has existed for decades in film comedy.
I finished the film with mixed emotions.
