Saturday, June 6, 2015

Spy


Spy2015 TeaserPoster.jpg

Released:  June 5th, 2015
Rated:  R
Distributor:  20th Century Fox
Starring:  Melissa McCarthy, Jason Statham, Rose Byrne, Miranda Hart, Bobby Cannavale, Allison Janney, Jude Law
Directed by:  Paul Feig
Written by:  Paul Feig
Personal Bias Alert:  not into broad comedy, haven’t seen any of Paul Feig’s movies

6 of 10





            The recent renaissance of commercially and critically successful James Bond flicks like Casino Royale and Skyfall have thrust the spy movie back into the spotlight.  Such success inevitably brings about parodies, homages, and comedic twists, littering cinemas with all variations on the genre.  2015 has already seen the homage-heavy Kingsman:  The Secret Service, and now we have the action-comedy Spy by writer/director Paul Feig.  Feig has openly spoken about how 2006’s Casino Royale planted the idea for Spy in his brain, and the years of gestation seems to have done the project some good.  For as broad of a comedy as it is, it’s remarkably well-balanced, delivery incessant comedy with smartly placed action.

            Feig again brings his female-lead twist, casting longtime collaborator Melissa McCarthy as the aspiring spy and filling out the rest of the cast with a raft of prominent women.  Miranda Hart appears as her sidekick, Allison Janney as her boss, and Rose Byrne as the main baddie.  Jude Law has the most prominent male role, and even he’s largely relegated to memories after a botched mission leads McCarthy into the field. 

Such female-driven films are slowly becoming more common, in no small part thanks to Feig and McCarthy, but rarely do we get to see the ladies dominating the action like they do here.  And I mean action, as McCarthy and company feature prominently in several rough-and-tumble sequences.  All are littered with quippy asides to maintain a light mood, but many are so well-choreographed that they are more than capable of standing on their own swivel-kicking feet.  Feig shows a good eye for capturing the action, using energetic cuts to keep it feeling rough without sacrificing continuity.  Similar camerawork is used throughout the film, helping to smooth the transition between the comedy and action elements.

Where the film stumbles is in its comedy, delivering the same ridiculous, mean-spirited jokes over and over again.  Feig must like McCarthy, otherwise they wouldn’t work together so much, but you wouldn’t know it by watching Spy.  Most of the time, her character is the continuous butt of jokes.  There is a sense that the jokes come from a place of misunderstanding, that everyone around her is only doing it based on incorrect assumptions about her appearance, but the fact that she becomes just as nasty as her compatriots takes away any chance this film had to teach a lesson about how incorrect this thinking is.  To be fair, McCarthy isn’t the only one to get picked on.  Everyone gets the hammer dropped on them at one point or another.  In fact, calling this film mean-spirited is incredibly nice of me, much nicer than the film is to its characters.  There are other, smarter ways of being funny.  Feig could have at least mixed it up a bit.

Despite the uphill battle, McCarthy remains a mostly likable presence.  She and all the other actors are hamstrung by paper-thin characters and a supremely traditional plot, but most operate adequately within these confines.  Jude Law and Rose Byrne make out the best, wringing their characters for all the smarm they’re worth without mugging for the camera.  Most of the cast seem happy enough to deliver their lines with all the clunk of a network sitcom, but it seems that Spy wasn’t aiming for much more than that.

Other Notes:
Ø  I like Rose Byrne in all these comedies she’s doing.
Ø  On the other hand, I didn’t like Jason Statham’s appearance.  I don’t blame Statham, I blame the irksome writing.
Ø  Someone will have to explain to me what’s funny about the pest infestations, because I didn’t get it.
Ø  In the film’s defense, I seemed to be much less enthused than the people at my screening were.  Perhaps the problem lies with me.

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