Review: SPY

Disclaimer: light spoilers, feminism, and profanity ahead.

tl;dr
This movie is funny. It's funnier than you might expect it to be but it's funny in a very Melissa McCarthy way. The jokes and physical comedy are vulgar, profane, and play strongly on the fact that she is an overweight woman. (This fact is supposed to make everything she does unbelievable, amazing, and hysterical.) It's not that the jokes fall flat, or that the bits don't work but it does feel that McCarthy has played this character before in the 2013 film The Heat, which was also directed by Paul Feig.

While The Heat felt like a natural follow up to the movie Bridesmaids (which Hollywood still thinks of as a surprising blockbuster hit) SPY feels more like a farewell to the all girls comedy club. McCarthy and her Bridesmaids co-star Rose Bryne, along with new comer, Miranda Hart, let the boys (most notably Peter Serafinowicz) do some heavy hitting of their own.

While the men are allowed into the club, it's definitely the interaction between the women that carry this movie. McCarthy's hot potato banter with Bryne is wonderfully funny and weird while Hart's moments with the former echo back to the female friendship aspect that so many loved about Bridesmaids. McCarthy's character, Susan Cooper, has a very real moment in the film when she sits down with the (female) head of the CIA, Allison Janney, and realizes that her career has been put on the back burner because of a man.

Although, it's also this same man who is the reason why Cooper takes on the mission that gives her her first field assignment. Whether you think this is movie has anything to add or say about feminism in the US is entirely up to you. I will say that Susan's motivations aside, the character's refusal to believe what everyone tells her is the best lesson to take away from all the jokes and action. When everyone says you can't; fuck them.

tl;dr Funny movie where Melissa McCarthy stars as a awkward CIA desk agent who is a secret bad ass. GIRL POWER!