Are people still saying women aren't funny? If so, lead them to the nearest movie theater and make them watch Melissa McCarthy's brilliance in Spy, her latest collaboration with writer-director, Paul Feig. Feig has been inching his way towards giving McCarthy a chewy lead role: she was incredible in her Oscar-nominated supporting performance in Bridesmaids, then memorably held her own opposite Sandra Bullock in The Heat, and now she's an unlikely but fearless CIA agent who is out to save the world and deliver some hysterically filthy smack talk along the way.
McCarthy plays Susan Cooper, a quiet, unassuming lady who sits in the CIA basement and helps agents who are out in the field. She mostly helps Bradley Fine (Jude Law, doing his best James Bond impersonation, albeit with a weird American accent), for whom she has an unrequited passion. The two of them make an excellent team as she frantically shouts instructions to him on his earpiece and helps him avoid all the traps in his path as he makes daring escapes during missions in exotic locales. However, when a mission goes terribly wrong, Susan comes out of the basement and heads out into the real world, desperate to prove her mettle and remember all her CIA training from the years before she became a desk agent.
There are hilarious supporting turns from beloved comedienne Miranda Hart, who plays one of Susan's co-workers, Nancy; Rose Byrne, who becomes Susan's cold-blooded Bulgarian nemesis, Rayna Boyanov; and Jason Statham, who is the insanely amped-up spy, Rick Ford, who thinks Susan cannot handle the job and is determined to save the day all by himself. Alison Janney and Peter Serafinowicz round out the cast with equally fun roles, but at the center of this melange of comic perfection is our leading lady, Melissa McCarthy. She storms through this film, morphing from mousy desk agent to confident super spy, and proving once and for all that she is nothing short of a comedy goddess. Whether she's effortlessly tossing out filthy one-liners and threatening to stick her hand down someone's mouth and play his heart like an accordion, or engaging in a fantastic piece of physical comedy as she races a motorocyle through the windy streets of Rome or battling a fellow spy with knives and saucepans, she is a force to be reckoned with throughout this film.
Writer-director Paul Feig also deserves a great deal of credit for creating a movie that is not simply a spoof of the spy genre but a legitimate spy movie that happens to be rib-crackingly funny. Susan is never the butt of the joke - instead it is made clear that she was always exceedingly competent, and it was Fine's flirty manipulation that convinced her to become desk agent instead of a spy out in the field. As her boss snorts, "Women." Her foray into fieldwork doesn't go smoothly; Feig doesn't pretend that a woman can be behind a desk one day and then kill a man the next without being utterly horrified, but that gradual transition is incredible to watch and gives you the full range of McCarthy's acting talent. At the beginning, she's the sweet and excitable woman who starred in Gilmore Girls; by the end, she's the sassy and self-confident woman who starred in The Heat.
Spy is further proof that Feig and McCarthy are a Hollywood dream team. Together, they have given us a hilarious, wacky, profane movie that will keep you laughing for two hours straight and give you lines that you will quote for the rest of your life. I can't wait to watch this movie again and catch a joke that I missed the first time around because I was laughing too much. So if you haven't seen Spy yet, stop dawdling, because you have no idea what you're missing.
McCarthy plays Susan Cooper, a quiet, unassuming lady who sits in the CIA basement and helps agents who are out in the field. She mostly helps Bradley Fine (Jude Law, doing his best James Bond impersonation, albeit with a weird American accent), for whom she has an unrequited passion. The two of them make an excellent team as she frantically shouts instructions to him on his earpiece and helps him avoid all the traps in his path as he makes daring escapes during missions in exotic locales. However, when a mission goes terribly wrong, Susan comes out of the basement and heads out into the real world, desperate to prove her mettle and remember all her CIA training from the years before she became a desk agent.
There are hilarious supporting turns from beloved comedienne Miranda Hart, who plays one of Susan's co-workers, Nancy; Rose Byrne, who becomes Susan's cold-blooded Bulgarian nemesis, Rayna Boyanov; and Jason Statham, who is the insanely amped-up spy, Rick Ford, who thinks Susan cannot handle the job and is determined to save the day all by himself. Alison Janney and Peter Serafinowicz round out the cast with equally fun roles, but at the center of this melange of comic perfection is our leading lady, Melissa McCarthy. She storms through this film, morphing from mousy desk agent to confident super spy, and proving once and for all that she is nothing short of a comedy goddess. Whether she's effortlessly tossing out filthy one-liners and threatening to stick her hand down someone's mouth and play his heart like an accordion, or engaging in a fantastic piece of physical comedy as she races a motorocyle through the windy streets of Rome or battling a fellow spy with knives and saucepans, she is a force to be reckoned with throughout this film.
Writer-director Paul Feig also deserves a great deal of credit for creating a movie that is not simply a spoof of the spy genre but a legitimate spy movie that happens to be rib-crackingly funny. Susan is never the butt of the joke - instead it is made clear that she was always exceedingly competent, and it was Fine's flirty manipulation that convinced her to become desk agent instead of a spy out in the field. As her boss snorts, "Women." Her foray into fieldwork doesn't go smoothly; Feig doesn't pretend that a woman can be behind a desk one day and then kill a man the next without being utterly horrified, but that gradual transition is incredible to watch and gives you the full range of McCarthy's acting talent. At the beginning, she's the sweet and excitable woman who starred in Gilmore Girls; by the end, she's the sassy and self-confident woman who starred in The Heat.
Spy is further proof that Feig and McCarthy are a Hollywood dream team. Together, they have given us a hilarious, wacky, profane movie that will keep you laughing for two hours straight and give you lines that you will quote for the rest of your life. I can't wait to watch this movie again and catch a joke that I missed the first time around because I was laughing too much. So if you haven't seen Spy yet, stop dawdling, because you have no idea what you're missing.
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