I can’t envision a studio
comedy packed with more outlandish gags than Paul Feig’s “Spy”—the movie’s pranks
involve (but are not limited to) European cars, CIA weaponry, and, not least of
all, the toilet habits of furry rodents.
And yet, as me and my colleague Mo Shaunette walked out of a screening
of the film last Saturday, we agreed on one thing: that there wasn’t much to
review.
It’s true. “Spy,”
for all its make-em-laugh bluster, is a superficial, deeply unimaginative
action farce. There may be some novelty
to the idea of planting the highly American Melissa McCarthy in a faux-James
Bond flick (she plays the pratfalling rookie agent Susan Cooper). But the movie’s determined reliance on Bondian
tropes only betrays its fear of dispatching its grandiosely bumbling heroine into
even vaguely original territory.
Of course, “Spy” has one asset—a multifaceted, primarily
female cast (including Rose Byrne, Miranda Hart, and Allison Janney). With any luck, the movie’s box office success
will allow its talented actresses to pop up in comedies that don’t desperately
beg you to laugh at the sight of a mouse crawling on a woman’s blouse.
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