Spy
Rated: MA15+
Three out of five
Now showing
WHEN a cast is lead by Melissa McCarthy, you expect it to be a side splittingly funny film.
With comedies such as Heat and Bridesmaids up her sleeve, she always seems to walk away as the stand-out performer of solid characters.
But it seems McCarthy has bought her Mike and Molly – a television show she stars in with Billy Gardell – style humour to the table instead.
Yes she’s still funny in Spy, but she’s missing a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ which comes from her usual film portrayal of tomboy characters, who don’t take any nonsense.
The Bridesmaids star plays Susan Cooper, a CIA agent who has never been in the field, and instead spends her days in the agency’s basement aiding fellow Bond-style agent Bradley Fine (Jude Law).
Cooper gets walked all over, despite being one of the CIA’s best agents, and somewhere in her mild nature, her comedic moments become almost too subtle and repetitive.
When Fine is killed by arms dealer Raina Boyanov (Rose Byrne, also from Bridesmaids) – who knows the face and name of every CIA field agent – Cooper gets assigned her first undercover field mission.
There is a downside however; Cooper’s spyware is less glamorous than expected and her new identities are all depressing women who have never been considered cool or sexy in their entire lives.
The fact she’s even on a mission, is much to the disgust of self-mythologised agent Rick Ford (Jason Statham), who believes being Cooper’s first time she’s likely to stuff it up.
Statham has a weird role in Spy.
While he idolises himself as the CIA’s most valuable agent, he’s really not that good at being one.
He’s clumsy and draws attention to himself, and was almost blown up because he wasn’t paying attention to his belongings.
And to make it worse, it is evidently clear that this is all because he’s trying to get a laugh out of the audience – it doesn’t seem natural.
However comedy doesn’t seem like a hard task for all the Spy cast.
British comic Miranda Hart stars as Cooper’s excitable co-worker Nancy.
Hart’s first time on the big screen, her comedic style transitions well from TV shows such as Miranda.
Her awkward and daggy character was easily loveable and relatable – two traits which don’t often appear in spy movie characters.
Overall though, Spy had a good plotline.
Like any good spy film, this comedy wasn’t predictable and was filled with gun fights, explosions and car chases.
And don’t get me wrong there were plenty of laughs, I was just expecting more originality from this McCarthy-lead cast.