Review of Spy (2015) by Filius S — 15 Jan 2016

I've heard people say that comedy films are the hardest films to make. They are tough to translate for international markets (because a lot of comedy is cultural), they are hard to act out (because actors need to have comedic timing to pull them off), and if they're not funny, the whole film becomes a disappointing waste of time. The last part is a bit tricky too, because comedy is such a subjective thing that it's hard to draw the line where something is too offensive, or too juvenile, or too centered around toilet humor, and who that will appeal to, and who it will turn away. It is because of this, that the best recent comedies have just had funny actors in them, delivering dialogue that they think is funny, which has been a successful formula for folks like Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Jason Segal, Paul Rudd, etc.

When Spy came out, a lot of people were talking about the film, hyping it up as the best comedy of the summer. If you're reading this review, I bet you want to know "well, is it?" The answer is. No. The Martian is more of a comedy movie than this, so it's no wonder it won the Golden Globe.

Spy is about a fat woman working at the CIA who acts as some sort of desk jockey/intel liaison who feeds the field agent mission details on the fly through an ear piece. She has access to omniscient levels of information, and it's unclear how or why that works, but I guess we're just supposed to accept it. Ugh, fine. So she's working with Jude Law, who plays an effeminate version of James Bond, and doesn't realize or care that the fat woman in his earpiece is in love with him.

Because of plot shit, all the CIA field agents end up getting outed, and in order to stop the nefarious plans of some dastardly villain, they need someone who has never worked in the field and could fly under the radar. So the CIA head, who looks like a female version of JK SIMMONS, decides that the super overweight American who doesn't speak a second language will be a good person to send to Europe on this mission of great national security.

Do you see what's happening here? They're justifying a fat person being a spy, none of this is really that important. They just needed a setup for all the wacky fat jokes, interspersed with insult jokes, and then peppered with sad moments where they talk about how difficult it is to be different and made fun of for it.

This movie is comedy for the sort of people who like sitcoms and modern day SNL. That is to say, it's not the worst, it's something you can watch and laugh a couple of times, or have a smile on your face. But it better be in the background because there are a lot of groan inducing moments that will make you wish you had something else to occupy your mind with.

TL;DR - 4/10.

Fat jokes can be funny, and shitty spy jokes can be funny too. But when a movie cycles between fat, fat, spy, spy, fat, can't get a man cause I'm fat, spy, jokes for two hours, it becomes a tedious exercise. There's also so many inconsistencies, like the fat spy woman being extremely acrobatic and aware of the matrix when it comes to gun fights, but then clumsy and oafish when trying to jump over a car hood, because, fuck it, I bet we can stick another fat joke in here, right guys? LOL *fart*.