Spy – Couldn’t hold it together

I know that the ‘spy genre’ is as old as the hills thanks to the everlasting Bond franchise, so much so that even spy movie parodies have become commonplace.  Therefore, my hopes were only relatively high that Melissa McCarthy could pull one off with little more than having a female as the lead spy being the main noticeable difference.  She plays a CIA agent who spends her career sitting behind a desk, providing intel for the ‘real’ spy, played by Jude Law.  However, in a turn of events that is there to simply move the plot forwards, she ends up being sent out on a mission.  And, for once, the ‘hilarious consequences’ promised in the trailer actually prove to look true.

Once she’s unleashed on the world (armed naturally with all the latest ‘Q-style’ gadgets every spy must have in their handbag) it’s pretty funny.  I was really enjoying the film, especially her interactions with Jason Statham.  Now, whereas McCarthy is well used to comedy, Statham is hardly known for his sense of on-screen humour.  However, he stole every scene for me and, even though he’s in it a fair bit, he wasn’t in it enough for my liking!  However, as Statham’s involvement was decreased, so did my enjoyment of the film.

I’ve seen a fair few films which I would describe as ‘films of two halves.’ Normally, they’re a bit slow to start, but, once they get going, really do pick up and entertain.  Sadly, in my opinion, ‘Spy’ was the opposite.  I was really enjoying McCarthy’s trademark foul-mouthed banter and, despite the plot hardly being anything original (i.e. spy parody), I felt the jokes hit almost every time.
However, the longer the film went on, the less jokes there seemed to be.  Or, if there were jokes, they didn’t seem half as funny as the first half’s offerings.  The film kind of moved away from comedy and went more for straight spy movie.  By that I mean the plot took over which was just about as generic as they come.  You have the baddie with the nuke and the doublecross and everything you’d see in either a Bond film, or any other spy parody.

Overall, it’s not bad, it’s just one of those films that I feel would have worked better as a stand-alone TV show where the jokes could have remained tighter throughout the whole runtime instead of seemingly running out of steam midway through.  Die-hard fans of McCarthy should probably enjoy this more than most and it was fun to see Jason Statham making fun of himself for a change, but apart from that, it’s a film that I’d rather watch on TV than actually pay full price for.

6/10 Should probably keep you awake if Freddy Krueger was haunting your nights