Spy
Directed by: Paul Feig
Written by: Paul Feig
Starring: Melissa McCarthy, Jude Law, Jason Statham, Rose Byrne, Miranda Hart, Bobby Cannavale, Allison Janney, Peter Serafinowicz, 50 Cent
Action/Comedy - 120 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 3 Jun 2015
Written by: Paul Feig
Starring: Melissa McCarthy, Jude Law, Jason Statham, Rose Byrne, Miranda Hart, Bobby Cannavale, Allison Janney, Peter Serafinowicz, 50 Cent
Action/Comedy - 120 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 3 Jun 2015
James Bond spoofs are nothing new. Our Man Flint premiered back in the mid-‘60s and there have been any number of bumbling and clumsy characters thrust into international intrigue from Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase in Spies Like Us (1985) to Leslie Nielsen in Spy Hard (1996). 2015’s ode to the spy spoof, Spy, sports a Get Smart (2008) vibe; a capable, yet overlooked, agent must get the job done when no one else can. Writer-director Paul Feig already played the casting against type game in The Heat (2013) placing Melissa McCarthy in a role reserved for brawny muscles. Spy faithfully follows its silly predecessors, the only difference being the main character is now played by a woman identified as a homebody, a cat lady, a shy, introverted mouse more comfortable behind the computer screen than in the field. While the first half setup easily exceeds the sluggish and tiresome second half, Spy shows huge potential before saturating the audience with annoying one note supporting characters and excessively wordy diatribes.
We get it; Melissa McCarthy (2014’s St. Vincent) does not look like a standard undercover CIA agent. How do we get it? Feig relentlessly pounds us over the head with gimmicky physical comedy. It’s not to the level of last year’s grotesque Tammy, a Melissa McCarthy debacle, but it’s in the same ballpark. McCarthy’s Susan Cooper gets what looks like pink eye and grosses everyone out. She gets lipstick on her teeth and eats a moist toilette thinking it’s an appetizer. Put on repeat, these slapstick visual one-liners belong in the hands of a lesser talent than Feig. Here is the man who created Freaks and Geeks, perhaps the most beloved high school TV comedy of all time launching the careers of James Franco, Seth Rogen, and Jason Segel. He brought us Bridesmaids (2011), a gut-busting comedy people still laugh about today. Feig’s sophomoric barbs and eye-rolling zingers in Spy are not his best work.
We get it; Melissa McCarthy (2014’s St. Vincent) does not look like a standard undercover CIA agent. How do we get it? Feig relentlessly pounds us over the head with gimmicky physical comedy. It’s not to the level of last year’s grotesque Tammy, a Melissa McCarthy debacle, but it’s in the same ballpark. McCarthy’s Susan Cooper gets what looks like pink eye and grosses everyone out. She gets lipstick on her teeth and eats a moist toilette thinking it’s an appetizer. Put on repeat, these slapstick visual one-liners belong in the hands of a lesser talent than Feig. Here is the man who created Freaks and Geeks, perhaps the most beloved high school TV comedy of all time launching the careers of James Franco, Seth Rogen, and Jason Segel. He brought us Bridesmaids (2011), a gut-busting comedy people still laugh about today. Feig’s sophomoric barbs and eye-rolling zingers in Spy are not his best work.
But oh, the promise of it all. Blazing off with a traditional action scene, ala every single James Bond film, McCarthy coaches CIA super-agent Bradley Fine (Jude Law, 2015’s Black Sea) through a Bulgarian chateau’s underground lair alerting him to bad guys around the corner and nearby intelligence he should take note of. Meanwhile, Susan’s co-workers engage in loud water cooler talk next to her desk, discover rat feces on top of a birthday cake, and unleash a nest of bats from the office’s basement ceiling. This is gold. Unfortunately, Spy only approaches these comedic highs once; most of the chuckles after this scene focus on McCarthy’s body and silly spy encounters.
Feig concluded over-the-top supporting characters were the surest route to comedic success. Melissa McCarthy was hysterical in Bridesmaids because she only showed up on screen in brief intervals, said or did something funny, and got the heck out of there. In Spy, an Inspector Clouseau like rouge CIA agent, Rick Ford (Jason Statham, 2015’s Furious 7), keeps popping up to act as the catalyst for ensuing mayhem. Statham mostly mocks his routine character type with usually funny monologues of how he ingested 169 poisons while undercover in a poison-sniffing ring or jumped off a skyscraper with only a raincoat to use as a parachute. He is amusing in small doses but Feig gives him a few doses too many.
Statham is brilliance personified compared to the film’s most nauseating character, an Italian spy named Aldo (Peter Serafinowicz, 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy), whose every move is one of egregious sexual harassment. Possibly funny the first time he reaches out and grabs McCarthy’s butt and boobs, it is no longer funny the 3,147th time he does it. Why Feig thought this Aldo character would work is inexplicable. Aldo is the embodiment of way too much way too often. Even though Spy is a spoof and not to be taken seriously, the audience still requires likable characters to root for and welcome back when they return to the screen. There are a lot of groans when Aldo makes another appearance.
Keeping track of who may or may not be a villain and who is trying to kill whom at any given moment is complicated. That’s all well and good, the plot points of tracking down a loose nuclear bomb is all secondary to the laughs. The main villain, Raina Boyanov (Rose Byrne, 2014’s Neighbors), may just be the film’s most effective character. Bond villains routinely run through their henchmen and deputies as the body count rises and Raina is in the running for a Guiness Record on the body count she is responsible for. Byrne is wonderful as a cold snake and reminiscent of her high and mighty character from Bridesmaids. It shows Feig likes to stick with familiar casting choices as he moves from project to project just like his sometimes partner in crime director Judd Apatow.
Spy works when it stays true to its title and directly mocks dramatic spy thrillers. Jason Statham’s character is sure there is such a thing as a ‘face off machine’ because, well, there just has to be. Feig only pokes fun at the genre some of time though. The other 50% of the film is stuffed with overbearing and disposable supporting characters who provide nothing in the way of support to the film. McCarthy mostly pulls off all of the physical gags but I will only remember the ‘what could have been’ parts of Spy instead of any of its one-liners.
Spy works when it stays true to its title and directly mocks dramatic spy thrillers. Jason Statham’s character is sure there is such a thing as a ‘face off machine’ because, well, there just has to be. Feig only pokes fun at the genre some of time though. The other 50% of the film is stuffed with overbearing and disposable supporting characters who provide nothing in the way of support to the film. McCarthy mostly pulls off all of the physical gags but I will only remember the ‘what could have been’ parts of Spy instead of any of its one-liners.
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