So, I finally got around to seeing Spy today. I would’ve had this up earlier but I had to go eat a small helping of humble pie first. Now anyone who knows me knows I usually go into any movie with the lowest of expectations, and while at first I thought I was only laughing out of desperation, after a few times I found myself actually enjoying it. That’s not to say it’s still not flawed, but let’s get to the review shall we.
Plot Summary - Susan Cooper (Melissa McCarthy) is a desk clerk and assistant to CIA Spy Bradley Fine (Jude Law) who dreams about doing more in her work at the CIA. When Bradley is killed during a mission however, Susan volunteers to help find Bradley’s killer and unravel the plot he was trying to stop. With Rogue CIA Rick Ford (Jason Statham) following and trying to finish the mission himself, Susan must overcome her inabilities and faults and save the day.
Pros - Right of the bat, Jason Statham is hysterical. I’m not sure how long he’s been wanting to do basically a parody of every character he’s ever played, but he just nails it. The line I’m going to quote the most is one of his, and honestly I’d watch the whole film again just for that one joke. All the supporting characters are great too, even managing to throw 50 Cent into the mix at a key moment in the story and it was genuinely unexpected and funny. I think the biggest surprise though was how well the chases and fight scenes were well done, including one in a kitchen that managed to make full use of the space and everything in it in both a funny and thrilling way. And once she gets going, Melissa McCarthy is intense, funny, and they do actually let her be a real spy while managing to keep the jokes timely and tasteful as well.
Cons - I want to say first that Jude Law is heavily underused in this film, and anyone who knows how much I like Repo Men should tell you how much I like Jude Law. I don’t want to go into spoilers, but seriously, underutilized. The bigger thing though is the jokes you see in the trailer and the jokes like that through out the film. The oh look she’s a lonely fat lady in her 40’s ha ha ha thing. The trailer I saw made it look like that would be the whole film, and that’s why I didn’t want to see it originally because I thought they were going to beat that one joke to death. Surprisingly though they keep that mostly in the first third of the film roughly, although I will say whenever Rose Byrne cracked one they worked mostly (although we’ll get to her in a second.) That being said, it makes the first third a bit hard to watch mostly because again it gets old fast. Like I said though, once they break away from that and let her actually be a spy, the movie gets so much better. Hell even though I won’t say it here I know the exact scene in which the movie finally grabbed my full attention. FInally Rose Byrne. She plays a one note character and while I do admit she has some good lines it also gets old fast although the movie manages to casually brush her out when it needs too so that it doesn’t get overbearing.
Side Note: The opening theme song is honestly really good, it could’ve actually been used as an actual bond song probably. I don’t know if that’s good or bad so I’m not listing it as either but I still wanted to make a note of it.
Final Score - 8/10
I almost gave it a 7, but just because of how much it actually surprised me and the fact that I’m actually willing to say I misjudged how much I was going to enjoy it (I blame the trailer entirely for that) it’s gets an 8 out of lets say begrudging respect.
I’m actually excited for the next review, because tomorrow there’s a big screen showing of the first Terminator movie. After that will most likely be Inside Out because I will do my best to see that movie ASAP.
So until then I’ll see you folks at the movies.
No comments:
Post a Comment