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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