Review of Spy (2015) by Filmgob — 04 Jun 2015

Melissa McCarthy stars in 'Roseanne Blart: Spy Cop', playing a desk-bound CIA analyst who volunteers to go undercover and find a deadly arms dealer. Okay, i'm sorry, let's try and be professional.

'Spy' is the first Melissa McCarthy film i’ve seen, and without doubt it will definitely be the last. It’s written and directed by Paul Feig, the man who thinks he understands the Ghostbusters franchise so well he wants to reboot it with a female cast, because that’s the cool thing to do these days, right? Is there an agenda in Hollywood that is pushing Feig and McCarthy? Did I miss a meeting or a memo?

Anyway, despite an impressive cast featuring Rose Byrne, Jude Law, Jason Statham, and Peter Serafinowicz, the film is the most mediocre garbage i’ve seen this year. Thumbs up to Byrne and Statham playing characters out of their comfort zone but the tired, forced stupidity was overbearing. Throw in an eye rolling cliche cameo from rapper 50 Cent, and you're all set for a complete waste of time. I feel dirty just thinking I spent two hours watching this. Why is it two hours long? It’s ‘comedy’ consists of jaw dropping, bottom of the barrel material such as fart jokes, dick pics, racial stereotypes, racist abuse, fat woman shouting and fat woman falling over. I wasn't fooled by the 'razor sharp wit' that is actually random, dumb, irrelevant humour which will appeal to the lowest common denominator. It's the go-to structure for lazy mainstream comedies today.

Do you remember intelligent, well written spy/agent comedies such as Pink Panther, Naked Gun or more recently Red and The Kingsman? Well you won’t find anything remotely similar here! It’s shocking Spy is being praised as ‘progressive’ and full of ‘belly laughs’. More like ‘formulaic’ and full of **** Despite her tag as the female Kevin James, I gave McCarthy a chance. Despite the trailer looking average, I gave the film a chance. Boy, should I have gone with my instincts.