Film Review: Spy (2015)

Copyright: 20th Century Fox

With Spy, its director Paul Feig delivered a great comedy which elegantly erases the elements of masculinity and bravado from the James Bond type of films. This simple action then reverts the entire narrative into its truer form of completely ludicrous comedy. 

In the film, Melissa McCarthy plays Susan, a desk officer in the CIA tasked with protecting her designated field agent Bradley, played by Jude Law. When Bradley gets killed in a strange encounter with a beautiful woman, Susan decides to leave her computer and become a field agent herself, in the hope of finding the persons’ responsible for Bradley’s death.

In a fantastic cooperation with Feig, Melissa McCarthy unleashes a tour de force of comedy, where she quickly shuffles between physical gags and a really aggressive type of verbal humor (better said, verbal insults). The second element demonstrates some excellent writing with jokes that are both smart and unpredictable. As the plot develops further, Feig drops McCarty’s character into every deeper waters of intrigue, danger, and suspense, where Susan’s actions also need to become bolder and even more insane. 

In one moment, the spiral of lies and moronic improvised stories becomes so convoluted that there is no way of remembering who began lying about what. Throughout this, Feig never loses direction or control of the plot, showing his rich experience with comedy content. 

Aside from these McCarthy, Jason Statham also worked diligently to create a parody of his previous roles, in this case, a macho killer with a less than impressive intellect. Statham, who is apparently looking to diversify his acting portfolio but without straying outside of this beloved action genre, just like he recently tried with Wild Card, really chose well when he decided to join the cast of this movies.

A fun comedy, Spy is one of the better parodies on the 007 films in recent years. It, along with Kingsman: The Secret Service, clearly show how many super-serious thriller plots are actually comedy gold.