Yes, No, Maybe So: 'Spy'
Thursday, January 29, 2015 at 8:00AM Margaret here with an update on upcoming projects from Paul Feig, the bannerman for blockbuster female-driven comedy. He's following up the roaring success of Bridesmaids and The Heat with two more big-budget Melissa McCarthy projects due over the next couple summers.
The buzzier of the projects is a female-led Ghostbusters reboot, whose main cast has just been announced. It's a wonderful lineup: Feig muse Melissa McCarthy, post-Bridesmaids movie star Kristen Wiig, the hilarious rubber-faced Saturday Night Live MVP Kate McKinnon, and comedy vet Leslie Jones, a recent addition to SNL as both a writer and a featured player. These choices, exciting on their own, are all the more gratifying when one considers all those rumors circa the Sony leak that they were looking at gamine young A-listers like Jennifer Lawrence and Emma Stone.
While we bask in the casting news (and speculate wildly on the movie's plot), let's take a look at the Feig/McCarthy project coming to us mere months from now: the espionage thriller parody Spy...
- The straight-faced opening scene is promising! Every good parody has to have a solid grip on the genre it's lampooning.
- Inspired casting of the super-spies: Jude Law's comic chops are criminally underutilized and it'll be great to see Jason Statham riff on his persona.
- Maybe, just maybe, all the people kvetching about how Melissa McCarthy plays too many sloppy women with funny voices can pipe down about this one. She's playing it pretty straight, just letting that aces comic timing do the work ("She used to write that in my lunchboxes") and looks plenty cute.
- Allison Janney is forever and always a yes, no matter the size of her part.
- This trailer is under two minutes long but I counted at least five wigs. This is a yes because, as we all know, the number of wigs in a movie is directly proportional to its quality. I am very excited about this.
- Most spy comedies this century have been atrocious. The Pink Panther remake and its sequel, the latter Austin Powers movies, Johnny English... It doesn't inspire confidence. In one sense, it's a low bar to clear, but we have to hope Feig is bringing new ideas to the table.
- The red-band trailer gets pretty salty, which isn't a bad thing, but it makes one fear they might rest on Melissa-McCarthy-has-a-potty-mouth humor.
- Its movie poster, which I'll grant you doesn't reflect on the trailer, is so broad and rote that it makes me tired:
- Paul Feig's last two hits with McCarthy were both written by other people. This will be his first major screenplay (he wrote several episodes of TV masterpiece Freaks and Geeks back in '99), which tosses a pretty major variable into the formula.
- Is it just me, or does Jude Law's American accent sound extremely silly? No? It's just me?
- Rose Byrne is on a comedy roll right now (critics loved her work in Neighbors) but it's hard to tell if her role will give her more to play than just Hot Villain.
Reader Comments (20)
Clouseau's not (and has never been) a spy, but I can list many more examples that are pretty darn bad (either seen or on reputation):
Agent Cody Banks 1 & 2
Bad Company
Cars 2
I Spy
Red 2
This Means War
The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course
The only really good one this century:
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (very dark IN it's sense of humour, but still also Clooney's best film)
I laughed a lot at the trailer, so that's a good sign. Agree on the inspired, perfect casting (even though I always get weirded out when Jude Law talks in an American accent). And I LOVE a good spy spoof, so I'm totally a yes for this.
Gawd, I hope this is good. The trailer made me laugh so I hope they haven't just delivered all the best lines. And Chummy/Miranda and Handsome Rob too? I'm a YES.
I liked it too (the Pope line got me), so I'm hoping for the best. Tammy was SUCH a disappointment, but McCarthy and Feig together hasn't let me down yet, so I'm excited.
How can anyone, with THAT cast, not be a YES? Hope this is fun!
Margaret, thanks for the so fun writeup. I would watch McCarthy and Byrne together sitting on a couch watching a Bulls game, so this is a yes for me. I agree with the wigs formula--with the exception of American Hustle. That wig factory needed to burn down.
It's a yes for me. McCarthy is a needed screen presence as a lead performer. I like Tammy despite its abundance of flaws.
I'm a YES. I laughed at the trailer and it looks quite promising.
YES - to anything with McCarthy. And I love that Ghostbusters cast. McKinnon and Jones deserve their breakout roles.
...Spy Kids 1-4, Get Smart...
I'm a maybe so on this one, and I'm hoping the odd way they all keep saying "nuke" is a plot point.
I was worried when I saw the poster. McCarthy has just been phoning it in with these "sloppy women with funny voices" roles lately. But the trailer looks promising.
No, No and Maybe No for me. This made me hide my face because I feel embaressed for the people that made it.
Can I just say that I love that Melissa McCarthy has become a huge movie star? Like, who would've guessed it?
Yes. Because yes.
Rose Byrne's "what a stupid fucking toast. you're delightful" in the red band trailer makes me giggle A LOT.
I watched both versions and laughed at the same jokes so that puts me very close to yes.
And the supporting cast--Miranda Hart, Carlos Ponce and others---inspired. Unless the reviews trash it, I'm in.
Yes! McCarthy playing it quieter will pay off.
I was a "maybe so/yes" until I saw the red band trailer, and now I'm pretty much a "no." The foul-mouthed McCarthy doesn't really appeal to me. (It was fun, though, to see her in that pink jacket, looking for all the world like the reincarnation of "the real Philomena Lee.")
Rose Byrne is the big sell for that trailer. I just love her in comedies. "Goodbye neighbor!"
Another maybe so: is the decision to make Melissa McCarthy's undercover guise look like the older Shelly Winters inspired or unfortunate?