Let's Go Out To The Movies: "Spy": Diet "Kingsman" (R - 20th CenturyFox - 2 hrs, 0 mins)

Alo Party Peoples.

Directed and Written by Paul Feig

Spy is another Melissa McCarthy vehicle written and directed by Paul Feig. The last time that happened was The Heat, which starred her and Sandra Bullock in a broad riff on 80s buddy cop movies. Spy goes back further to do a broad riff on 60s spy movies, and in particular Golden Age James Bond. If you saw Kingsman and thought "This is good, but I'd like it more if it were less witty and broader. Oh, and all this blood is just too much for my sensibilities.", then you will probably enjoy Spy, and if you didn't think that, you still might enjoy Spy, because it's still really funny.

Melissa McCarthy is a CIA mission controller who's field agent/boyfriend dies on the job trying to stop a Chechen nationalist terror cell from obtaining a nuclear bomb. Since the last thing she saw on her camera feed was one of their higher ups reading off a list of active CIA agents, they have no choice but to send McCarthy in to pursue the case. That's it, that's the whole setup. Oh, there are twists and double-crosses and plot complications, but any sharp eyed viewer will probably spot them coming a mile away, and they aren't what Spy is interested in.

The main focus of Spy is making a broad physical comedy in the confines of a spy movie, which it does with great success... and that's all I can really say without giving away the jokes. That's the hard thing about talking about any form of comedy. "Analyzing humour is like dissecting a frog. No one is interested, and the frog dies." (E.B. White) I could talk about how Paul Feig has figured out how to do visual comedy, or McCarthy's fantastic chemistry with Rose Byrne as a fellow supervisor turned super-sleuth, or how Jason Statham commits grand-theft-cinema in a supporting role, but then those things would be less funny to you when you saw them. Aside from a confused thematic line where traditionally attractive agents get to work in the field while someone that looks like Melissa McCarthy is kept out of sight at base (wow, subtle), there's not that much to talk about.

So, all I can really do here is say that Spy is hilarious and hope you trust me on that.

All in all

Have a nice day.

Greg.B