Usually when I give up, I never come back. I’ve loved Melissa McCarthy since the Gilmore Girls and was delighted when Hollywood started paying attention to her after Bridesmaids, but each movie that McCarthy has been in since has been a variation of isn’t she fat and crass. The movies laughed at and not with her. The Heat was the closest that she got to striking a balance between the McCarthy that I’ve always loved, and the McCarthy that Hollywood sees. After Tammy, I lost all faith. McCarthy was in creative control of Tammy, and Tammy was worse than everything that came before. So when everyone urged me to see Spy in theaters, I basically thought that it would be an act of incredible charity or stupidity to drink from the poisoned well. There is no shame in selling out to support yourself and your family, but I didn’t have to go along for the ride.
I am so glad that I gave Spy a chance. Spy is McCarthy’s funniest and best movie to date. She plays a desk agent for the CIA who decides to enter the field to avenge an agent that she had a crush on and worked with for years. Spy doesn’t fall into the pitfalls of most spoof movies. Spy successfully melded a convincing action and comedic narrative while merging Sookie St. James of Gilmore Girls with Mullins from The Heat. Best of all, Spy digs at how Hollywood sees McCarthy in her cover aliases: cat spinsters, Avon ladies and generally dumpy, unfashionable ugly Americans on vacation. Spy makes a solidly funny action film that highlights the absurdity of 007 genre while also taking a minute to knowingly mock Hollywood’s eye roll worthy pigeonholing of McCarthy and urging women to step out of the shadows to let out their inner badass without being heavy handed or condescending. I would go so far as to say that Spy is one of the US film’s best attempt to achieve the success that the UK has with films by Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in making a movie that simultaneously adheres to and finds humor within a genre like horror, science fiction or buddy cop movies.
Spy is not just notable for casting a solid comedic actor like McCarthy or having an excellent comedic spy narrative, but also casting excellent action actors such as Jason Statham or dramatic actors like Jude Law, Allison Janney and Rose Byrne and allowing them to depart from their usual course of business. Statham says my favorite line in Spy, “I make it a habit of doing things people say I can’t do…..take up piano at a late age.” When McCarthy and Statham and McCarthy and Byrne unexpectedly have the best comedic chemistry.
I liked Spy so much that I would not mind seeing it again and again along with Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Definitely watch the end credits and give it your full attention. Spy is possibly the funniest movie of the year.