Lazy Film Critic reviews....
Spy is the latest pair up between director Paul Feig and actress Melissa McCarthy, following Bridesmaids and The Heat, which were both movies I really enjoyed, and Spy is no exception. Among McCarthy, the film also stars Jason Statham, Rose Byrne, Bobby Cannavale, Jude Law, Morena Baccarin, Miranda Hart, Allison Janney, and Peter Serafinowicz. The film follows a CIA analyst who has to go undercover after all the other agents have their identities compromised.
Now, what I really enjoyed about Spy, comedy aside, was Melissa McCarthy's role in the film. Most of the time (by which I mean all the time) she's cast as a sort of crass, kind of angry, and sarcastic character. However, Spy is the first time I've seen her play a non-typecast role, as she's kind of this nerdy awkward character for the first half. Granted, later she obviously slowly turns into the hilarious crass Melissa Mccarthy we all know her for, but by that point it actually adds to her character arc rather than detracts from it. This was a really new kind of role for Mccarthy, and she did a good job at playing it.
Parody movies are pretty common, with stuff like Scary Movie, but rarely are they ever good. I can gladly say that Spy will hopefully be the movie that brings back the parody genre, because at this point we could all do with some good parodies. This movie is a really good parody of the spy genre, it addresses essentially every plot hole, trope, and cliche all spy movies have, and it leads to a really funny movie for spy fans. Hell, even the opening credits are pretty cool, that's rare for just movies in general.
Most of the cast in this movie is pretty funny, however I feel like there's only one of them who I have to talk about here, and that person is Jason Statham. He plays a fellow spy in this movie, but he's not like James Bond or anything, no he's the extreme badass blows stuff up spy. What makes him a scene stealer is how much he has to let everyone know how hardcore he is, making sure people know he's immune to 127 types of poison, and that he knows because he ingested all of them at once. Even as I'm typing this I'm cracking up thinking about some of the stuff he says in this movie. His timing and delivery is so perfect and so fast that it feels unscripted. It feels like Statham is making this stuff up on the spot, and he stole the movie for me.
Final Rating
Spy was a hilarious movie, one that I'd without a doubt recommend to anyone looking for a good time. Melissa Mccarthy was funny, Rose Byrne was funny, Allison Janney was funny as always. And Jason Statham completely owns the movie for me, every line that comes out of his mouth is quotable, and his character and his scenes alone are worth the price of a ticket.
Spy
3.8/5
Feig has mastered the art of comedy in its pure physical and verbal sense, and he fires them at you like bullets, so that you are always never ready for his comedic attacks, rendering you in helpless peals of laughter.
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