MOVIE REVIEW: SPY

Shane | 13 May 2015 | Reply

MOVIE REVIEW: SPY
Written & Directed by Paul Feig
Starring Jude Law, Melissa McCarthy, Rose Byrne, Jason Statham, Miranda Hart, Peter Serafinowicz
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
8 ½ /10

When one Hollywood studio makes a hot property hit, you can be certain that another will follow the format pretty quickly. Hence, after the action-packed fin of The Kingsman, here is Spy, similarly poking fun at the Bond genre.

That’s where the similarity ends though, as Spy is played purely for laughs by McCarthy, Hart and even Statham.

Law is the Bond-alike Bradley Fine here, with McCarthy plays Susan Cooper, the desk-bound backup person enabling his missions to succeed. When he is put out of action, McCarthy goes into the field as an agent, with a succession of slapstick hilarious results, with Miranda Hart playing her backup person, Nancy.

Statham plays agent Rick Ford, who has by this time gone rogue and attempts to solve the case himself, not trusting in McCarthy’s abilities, but his clumsiness and general ineptitude send up his hard man image beautifully.

McCarthy is, as always, happy to be the brunt of the ‘fat ugly chick’ jokes, which cheapens the story with its too-obvious nastiness, but in a funny and cutting subplot her undercover identities are progressively more dowdy, unflattering and clichéd, as if a plain or overweight woman can only be believable as a Midwest housewife. The joke is on them, of course, with art imitating life a bit here.

Byrne overacts outrageously as the cold hard bitch bad guy, Rayna Boyanov – like every good Bond villain should – while Serafinowicz goes right over the top as a sexist Italian agent.

It’s far from highbrow, and isn’t going to address any global issues, but it’s a funny escape for a couple of hours (which is about twenty minutes too long, mind you, and a better edit would have made for a punchier film).