Spy

This review may contain spoilers!

The best way to describe this film is that it contains fifty percent vulgarity and fifty percent decent action/comedy film. I would give Spy a 6.5/10.

Spy thrives in that it has a well paced plot that quite thoughtfully constructs a female lead who we really come to empathise with and enjoy as she develops. The story itself is quite a fun parody of usual spy film tropes, all while creating a strong story about character development. The soundtrack for this film was incredibly good, most noteworthy being the Bond intro parody. The fight choreography and car stunts were exceptionally good, the action moved very quickly.

Rose Byrne, who played Raina Boyanov, really makes quite a mark as a cussing antagonist; her sudden mood swings make her a lot of fun to watch. Melissa McCarthy, who played Susan Cooper, was a brilliant lead; her natural humour and ability to deliver fantastic dialogue really showed consistently throughout the film. Jude Law, who played Bradley Fine, was the perfect stereotypical spy; his egocentric role was delightfully smooth and charming. 50 Cent, who played Himself, had a great cameo; his dig at Kanye West was a perfect scene stealer.

However the best performance of the film came from Jason Statham, who played Rick Ford. Statham used his natural presence for action films to complete parody his usual performances. Essentially he made a character that mocked classic spy heroes by arrogantly claiming he was the best of the best. Statham put a great deal of arrogance into the role yet the comedy was more subtle; showing some of the smartest uses of comedy within the feature.

The cinematography in this film was kind of forgettable; there wasn't any attempt to create memorable shots within the film. The special effects also left a lot to be desired, the scene where she puked in particular was incredibly fake. Spy also suffered from a sense of vulgar humour, sex jokes or curse language mainly. This sense of humour really took away from what could have been a fantastic comedy. Furthermore the very end of the film really took away from the film's message of creating a strong and empowered female protagonist.

Morena Baccarin, who played Karen Walker, was a very insignificant character that lacked screen presence; frankly she was just used as a plot device and that was it. Allison Janney, who played Elaine Crocker, had some of the worst moments of comedy within the film; she also wasn't even remotely convincing as the head of a spy agency. Bobby Cannavale, who played De Luca, was a terrible final act antagonist; his motives and role within the plot were about as non-existent as his screen time. Peter Serafinowicz, who played Aldo, really embodied everything I didn't like about this film; his constant sexual humour just brought this film down and he really got more screen time than he deserved. Miranda Hart, who played Nancy, had a role that was all over the place; the real let down was that while her character was great at times she often undermined herself by coming off as a bad stand up comedian who had worked into a Hollywood role rather than an actor.