Who would’ve thought Melissa would make an amazing spy?
The new film Spy, is without a doubt, one of the best action-comedy duo movies of this year. This film follows the story of Melissa McCarthy’s character, Susan Cooper, who is a CIA analyst who has spent most of her life behind a desk working tirelessly with the handsome CIA agent Bradley Fine (Jude Law). With the majority of their partnership being Susan in Fine’s ear, giving him directions and advice to keep Fine safe from harm, Susan also develops a love for him that, unfortunately, is unreciprocated. However, it is when Fine is assassinated by Bulgarian arms dealer Rayna Boyanov (Rose Byrne) during a dangerous covert CIA mission is when Susan Cooper steps up to the plate to avenge the love of her life and capture the woman who took him away from her.
Melissa McCarthy’s character in Spy is probably the perfect role for her. Susan Cooper as a character is this awkward, tense, and somewhat uptight woman who doesn’t seem to have much confidence in herself. However generic this characterization is for this character, McCarthy is able to play off of these traits phenomenally. The timing of her jokes and the way each joke she puts out is presented leads to some of the biggest and hardest laughs. McCarthy has always been known for being very vocal, using her excessive amount of energy and charisma to her advantage when it comes to comedy. However, with this comedy-action duo, she excelled tremendously. She was able to seamlessly incorporate her personality and energy not only in the comedy portion of the movie but also in the action packed, spy moments of the movie as well. And with this type of character that she is playing, she is not only able to make a ton of jokes and have them land, but also show the depth of her character being a woman in love and looking for retribution. This can only be a testament of McCarthy’s acting prowess in how she isn’t a one trick pony in the sense that she can but in emotion and heart into her performances and make it totally believable.
Another thing that has to be made note of is the empowering, feminist message that this movie is trying to send. Jason Statham comes up with another excellent performance as the British CIA agent, Rick Ford. What was interesting and very amusing about Spy is that Susan Cooper’s main worry isn’t the bad guys she is trying to track down but instead how she constantly has to protect Ford whenever he decides to pop up. Statham’s character is that of an overconfident yet underachieving spy who likes to think that he is the only one who can get the job done even though he has almost died because of his pompous attitude nearly a dozen times in this film. What this in turn does is that is gives a sort of empowerment to the idea of a female lead character, saying that this female leading character can manage so much and handle all the tricky things thrown her way and still come up on top and be a character that the audience can root for. Very rarely have movies decided to cast a female lead who does not need to rely on some sort of male co-lead to develop her as a character and make the movie a success. In fact, McCarthy is able to hold her own, which is very unsurprising, in her movie and what was funny is how any single male character in this movie is either pompous, annoying, incompetent, or just a combination of the three. Spy therefore proves that a female lead character is accessible and attainable while still having a great overall movie.
Lastly, the comedy in general has to be made note of. Although this movie is a type of spy movie and has plenty of intense action scenes, the comedy in the end is the thing that makes this movie a huge success. What was great about this movie was the range in comedy, being from physical comedy, to very direct verbal comedy, to even very subtle and indirect pop culture references. This movie had it all and all that can really be said is that the writing for this movie is spectacular. There have been many movies where there have been the funniest people cast in it but the writing just lacks in all aspect. The writing in this movie is sophisticated and amazing. It has something for everybody in terms of making people laugh and having that ability to make any type of audience laugh is something that very few movies are able to achieve.
Overall, Spy, is a wonderfully funny and action packed movie to go and see. Spy hits theaters on June 5.
Check out what the cast had to say about the project at the New York premiere this week!
-Vinesh Vora
