The Case for She Spies

I love Melissa McCarthy.

She is hilarious.

I love Miranda Hart.

She is hilarious.

I love Allison Janney.

She is hilarious.

I love Jason Statham.

And, surprisingly, in Spy, he is absolutely hilarious too.

But Spy is very much McCarthy’s movie, and she holds the whole thing together despite its unnecessarily long 2 hour running time.  From back office off sider to Jude Law’s CIA James Bond character, she becomes a field Agent keen to track down Rose Byrne and her insane hairdo in order to save the world.  Kind of.

There are lots of swings and roundabouts and ups and downs in this film, but you can’t deny that McCarthy’s charisma holds the whole thing together.  Even if Hart seems to be a visitor from the set of Miranda rather than a character written for this movie, she still brings a few guffaws and it is McCarthy that makes sure Hart’s performance stays a part of her film.

And then there is Statham.  Statham the revelation.  Playing up on his hard man with the hard abs image, Statham’s overly macho character slowly turns into a mickey taking caricature of the man of action himself.  And he totally nails it.  Who else could deliver lines about sewing on dismembered limbs with his other limbs than the man who personifies the heart-restarting Crank?  Opposite McCarthy, who plays the straight person to his increasingly insane utterances, he is utterly brilliant.

And there are elements like that throughout Spy that make the film highly enjoyable.  That’s not to say the film is without flaws, as there are some sections that almost had me asleep, so slowly did things unfurl and so weak were the jokes within them.  But then the action gets underway or McCarthy lets loose on Byrne and things look a whole lot brighter.

I have to admit, I was a little worried when I went into this that I would not enjoy this as much as the trailer promised, but I was pleasantly surprised and delighted.  While not all of my companions were likewise smitten with Spy, the majority of the people in the cinema had a great experience, and even the less impressed had to admit they laughed at least 5 times.

Verdict: Spy is a great action/comedy starring some incredible female talent, amply supported by some beautiful male actors who are happy to have their macho images mildly mocked.  Probably not as overall awesome as Kingsman, it was definitely funnier and did not have a questionable scene at the end – well, it did, but it was a funny questionable rather than a “really?” one.  7.5 pussy cat badges out of 10.