Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Spy

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Posted by Stu Jamieson (Member # 4626) on 05-30-2015, 06:39 PM:

After utilising her in a support role in Bridesmaids and as the shared lead in Heat, it appears that Melissa McCarthy has become Paul Feig's muse as she's now front and centre in his new James Bond spoof,Spy. Feig may have inadvertantly stumbled upon McCarthy's limitations, however, as his star is strangely the least funny character for at least the first half of the movie. This is because for the first half of the film McCarthy is playing the "nice girl" and "nice" McCarthy just isn't very funny. Fear not, though, when Rose Byrne's villain enters the picture, McCarthy gets a sparring partner and enters "hardarse" mode and hardarse McCarthy is very funny indeed.

In the comedic void that is the first half of the film, the best comedic performance surprisingly comes from action star, Jason Statham, reminding us of his big screen debut in Guy Richie's popular and funny Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. It's a welcome return to comedy for Statham; a turn that we'll hopefully see more of amidst his well established action career. But Statham features only sporadically throughout the film so in the absence of any solid comedy in the first half, it makes for a fairly pedestrian opener.

Performances from the rest of the cast which include Jude Law, Allison Janney (strangely uncredited), Miranda Hart and Morena Baccarin are merely adequate and add little to the comedy quotient.

Spy is an uneven comedy. While all the cylinders may fire at one time or other, they never fire together. It's as if there were a "funny stick" being passed around the set preventing more than one character being funny at any given time. This combined with a lack of a binding spiritual soul (which made Bridesmaids so successful) means that there's little in Spy to be emotionally engaged with.

6 out of 10

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 05-31-2015, 01:38 PM:

I like McCarthy but some of the scripts she's given and she plays are flat out bad - guess I'll go into this with low expectations I really want to like this, since the trailers 'look' funny.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-31-2015, 11:15 PM:

McCarthy's problem is she only plays one character - the foul-mouthed, put-upon fat gal. It's funny at times but a little goes a long way, at least for me.

I liked "Heat," when she had Sandra Bullock to play off. I have low expectations for this one.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 06-01-2015, 01:53 AM:

The non-stop cursing and swearing in Heat got on my nerves after a while. I suppose the movie was funny enough, but all of the foul language spoiled it for me.

Some cursing is ok in a movie, but if it's overdone it just gets repetitive and boring, and ultimately demonstrates that the screenwriter had nothing significant to fill in the time with.

Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 06-11-2015, 08:28 PM:

CINEMA: Flix Brewhouse, Des Moines, IA
AUDITORIUM: 1
PRESENTATION: Mystery Meat Digital
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: No mask...oh who cares.
RATING: Two and one half stars (out of four)

Guy shows up to take my food order. "Ravioli Bolognese (9.95) and a Pepsi (a tall restaurant tumbler for $3.25 with unlimited refills)." He types this into his tablet and from the amount of finger pushing he's doing, he's literally typing out "r-a-v-i-o-l-i b-o-l-o-g-n-e-s-e a-n-d a p-e-p-s-i". Then he walks off to the end of the aisle, suddenly turns around, walks back, and says "I forgot to tell you! We're out of Ravioli Bolognese."

I glare. He helpfully suggests "We have a special burger this week. It has a sort of Alfredo sauce."

I glare for a good minute. Then I say "Okay."

The burger ($12.95 including fries), topped with Swiss, a slice of ham, and a fried egg, was FUCKING AMAZING. The patty was perfectly seasoned. Not kidding...it was worth every penny. It came with the Alredo-ish sauce and the usual veggie accompaniments on the side for you to add on, which is the perfect way to do things in a dark auditorium. Especially when they give you ONE FUCKING NAPKIN. The fries were also FUCKING AMAZING. They seem to be coated with something to make them crunchy and were also perfectly seasoned. They didn't even need ketchup, which IS supplied, albeit in a weird plastic container that is impossible to figure out how to open in the dark.

NOT kidding. The food was just fucking great.

THE PLOT: A CIA analyst loses her agent. Wackiness ensues.

As Stu notes, McCarthy kind of plods along for the first part of the movie as a dopey analyst who everybody has pigeonholed as a cat lady ("I don't have a cat!" she repeatedly notes.) She ends up in the field dressed up like Shelly Winters in "The Poseidon Adventure" and frumps her way through until she saves Rose Byrne's character, at which point she suddenly turns into a kick-ass foul-mouthed field agent. There's no subtle evolution...it just happens.

Which is to say it gets better as it goes. Jason Statham is hilarious in this. Jude Law and Allison Janney are also standouts.

Not a great flick, but it's campy fun, probably the best that could be expected.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 06-12-2015, 04:30 PM:

I quite enjoyed this - but did it have to be 2 hours in duration - it kind of plodded at times.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-26-2015, 10:17 PM:

As noted above, I had low expectations for this and the expectation was met. It was just OK, nothing more.

I hate it when a movie character starts out as a meek, mild, nice-person type and suddenly, with no practice, no training and not a bit of hesitation, turns into a super-badass hero and instantly becomes capable of everything from shooting three or four bad guys in quick succession to being able to drive a car like an auto daredevil. Such is what happens to Melissa McCarthy's character here. The movie would be so much funnier if her character had stayed true to itself. As long as you forget about the plot and just enjoy McCarthy's badassery (plus one motorcycle/car chase that's hilarious), you'll be fine.

Actually you might as well forget about the plot anyway, because it's incomprehensible. If you're hoping for a story that makes sense, situations approaching any kind of believability, or characters you can ever sympathize with, better go watch "Bridesmaids" again.

2 out of 5 stars for me because while I enjoyed the laughs, I like a good story, and I didn't get one here. Actually I'm going to deduct one star and make it 1 out of 5, thanks to the language in the movie which is totally, over-the-top, unnecessarily bad.