← Back to Reviews
in
#756 - Spy
Paul Feig, 2015
An unassuming CIA office worker is sent into the field to go after an insidious criminal mastermind.
Paul Feig had been responsible for one of my favourite TV shows with short-lived high-school dramedy Freaks and Geeks, but he had failed to impress me on a cinematic level when I saw his break-out film Bridesmaids, which hewed a little too close to the same alienating brand of R-rated romantic comedy popularised by Freaks and Geeks writer Judd Apatow. With Spy, Feig reunites with Bridesmaids actor Melissa McCarthy for a plot that evokes animated spy sitcom Archer in how it not only focuses on the deeds of a debonair gentleman spy (here played by Jude Law) but also on the generic soul-crushing office environment that exists behind the spy's very glamourous scenes. McCarthy plays the office worker who serves as Law's mission control and guides him through his dangerous missions, with her devotion to this extremely thankless role being motivated by her unrequited affection for Law. When Law is killed by a villainous heiress (Rose Byrne) during a mission, a vengeful McCarthy volunteers for the follow-up mission that involves trailing Byrne and bringing her to justice. The CIA boss (Allison Janney) decides to give McCarthy the role on the basis of her surprisingly competent combat skills, but McCarthy still has to face complications provided by good and bad characters alike.
While Spy arguably indulges some transparently accessible (but still R-rated) humour due to having a corpulent, clumsy person like McCarthy in the lead role, I can still appreciate how there are some layers to the comedy on offer here. One can play a drinking game with the sheer number of spoken jokes that can't help but feel like they were culled from a long reel of improvisations (with the most obvious offenders being the ones that start with the phrase "you look like"), but there's something to the rhythm involved on both sides of the camera that makes the barrage of one-liners work in such a way that they'll land more often than not. The film is still fundamentally aware of its parodic nature, even if that does extend to little more than inserting hapless everywomen like McCarthy or her gangly co-worker (Miranda Hart) into all the usual spy-movie set-pieces such as pursuing assassins or gaining the villain's trust using careful subterfuge. McCarthy does prove especially solid - though her initial development as a neurotic doormat doesn't exactly impress, she is still able to convincingly make the leap to outwardly vicious-sounding undercover agent without an issue. There are all sorts of monkey wrenches thrown in to keep things interesting, most prominently Jason Statham as a belligerent agent whose tales of dangerous situations comes close to sounding like a list of Chuck Norris jokes - and that's without mentioning how he constantly threatens McCarthy's operation with his stereotypical rogue agent nonsense. Other actors are given good comedic material, whether it's Byrne as a lovably reprehensible enemy with a masterful capacity for cruel punishments and snobby insults or Peter Serafinowicz as a Eurotrash pervert who just so happens to be one of McCarthy's undercover contacts.
Spy isn't great by any means, but it certainly exceeded my low expectations (if not by much). There are still plenty of ways in which it does play out some rather basic humour in terms of both slapstick or hearing the various broadly-drawn characters interact with one another, but the constant stream of one-liners and farcical scenarios do yield a surprisingly high number of good jokes and I'll definitely admit to getting a few good laughs out of the whole thing. One can appreciate the subtext in this relatively lightweight spy romp without it prompting derisive eye-rolling - of particular note is how McCarthy is forced to adopt multiple unflattering cover identities in what also serves as a clever reference to the film industry's narrow-minded typecasting of actresses like McCarthy. I also appreciate how it's not afraid to get its hands dirty thanks to the freedom offered by an R rating as it invokes scenes of violence ranging from horribly botched assassinations to frantic hand-to-hand fights but manages to avoid coming across as nihilistic bloodshed. Spy doesn't really aim to do much more than give audiences a dependable source of laughs and a small degree of excitement, and I think it delivers well enough to deserve some merit but not enough to totally win me over.
Paul Feig, 2015
An unassuming CIA office worker is sent into the field to go after an insidious criminal mastermind.
Paul Feig had been responsible for one of my favourite TV shows with short-lived high-school dramedy Freaks and Geeks, but he had failed to impress me on a cinematic level when I saw his break-out film Bridesmaids, which hewed a little too close to the same alienating brand of R-rated romantic comedy popularised by Freaks and Geeks writer Judd Apatow. With Spy, Feig reunites with Bridesmaids actor Melissa McCarthy for a plot that evokes animated spy sitcom Archer in how it not only focuses on the deeds of a debonair gentleman spy (here played by Jude Law) but also on the generic soul-crushing office environment that exists behind the spy's very glamourous scenes. McCarthy plays the office worker who serves as Law's mission control and guides him through his dangerous missions, with her devotion to this extremely thankless role being motivated by her unrequited affection for Law. When Law is killed by a villainous heiress (Rose Byrne) during a mission, a vengeful McCarthy volunteers for the follow-up mission that involves trailing Byrne and bringing her to justice. The CIA boss (Allison Janney) decides to give McCarthy the role on the basis of her surprisingly competent combat skills, but McCarthy still has to face complications provided by good and bad characters alike.
While Spy arguably indulges some transparently accessible (but still R-rated) humour due to having a corpulent, clumsy person like McCarthy in the lead role, I can still appreciate how there are some layers to the comedy on offer here. One can play a drinking game with the sheer number of spoken jokes that can't help but feel like they were culled from a long reel of improvisations (with the most obvious offenders being the ones that start with the phrase "you look like"), but there's something to the rhythm involved on both sides of the camera that makes the barrage of one-liners work in such a way that they'll land more often than not. The film is still fundamentally aware of its parodic nature, even if that does extend to little more than inserting hapless everywomen like McCarthy or her gangly co-worker (Miranda Hart) into all the usual spy-movie set-pieces such as pursuing assassins or gaining the villain's trust using careful subterfuge. McCarthy does prove especially solid - though her initial development as a neurotic doormat doesn't exactly impress, she is still able to convincingly make the leap to outwardly vicious-sounding undercover agent without an issue. There are all sorts of monkey wrenches thrown in to keep things interesting, most prominently Jason Statham as a belligerent agent whose tales of dangerous situations comes close to sounding like a list of Chuck Norris jokes - and that's without mentioning how he constantly threatens McCarthy's operation with his stereotypical rogue agent nonsense. Other actors are given good comedic material, whether it's Byrne as a lovably reprehensible enemy with a masterful capacity for cruel punishments and snobby insults or Peter Serafinowicz as a Eurotrash pervert who just so happens to be one of McCarthy's undercover contacts.
Spy isn't great by any means, but it certainly exceeded my low expectations (if not by much). There are still plenty of ways in which it does play out some rather basic humour in terms of both slapstick or hearing the various broadly-drawn characters interact with one another, but the constant stream of one-liners and farcical scenarios do yield a surprisingly high number of good jokes and I'll definitely admit to getting a few good laughs out of the whole thing. One can appreciate the subtext in this relatively lightweight spy romp without it prompting derisive eye-rolling - of particular note is how McCarthy is forced to adopt multiple unflattering cover identities in what also serves as a clever reference to the film industry's narrow-minded typecasting of actresses like McCarthy. I also appreciate how it's not afraid to get its hands dirty thanks to the freedom offered by an R rating as it invokes scenes of violence ranging from horribly botched assassinations to frantic hand-to-hand fights but manages to avoid coming across as nihilistic bloodshed. Spy doesn't really aim to do much more than give audiences a dependable source of laughs and a small degree of excitement, and I think it delivers well enough to deserve some merit but not enough to totally win me over.