Cinemazlowski 'Spy' - utterly silly fun

There’s no other way to describe actress Melissa McCarthy than as a force of nature, a comic hurricane who crashes onto movie and TV screens and destroys everything in her path in hilarious fashion. The only possible comparison to her in the history of women comics might be Lucille Ball, whose constant and fearless physical-comedy antics on the classic “I Love Lucy” set the path that McCarthy now boldly follows.

Sure, there is one major difference between McCarthy and Ball: McCarthy also has a talent for the profane, spinning webs of foul-mouthed anger and insults at anyone who gets in her characters’ way, while Ball was the put-upon housewife whose harebrained schemes always fell apart in the end. McCarthy’s comic bullhorn of a mouth is the main reason her films have been rated R, so let’s just get it out of the way that if you really hate hearing foul language so much it ruins your movie-watching experience, steer clear of her.

But if you can just let her words slide past your ears, with the understanding that as a discerning and disciplined adult you’re not going to wind up bursting into comic tirades at everyone in your life just from watching a movie, then you’re missing out on a woman who just might be the funniest person on the planet today. And she’s got her funniest movie yet with the new film “Spy,” written and directed by her collaborator on her breakthrough film “Bridesmaids,” Paul Feig.

 I’m not going to tell you that you have to let your personal standards down if you really hate swearing.  But I’ve personally discussed the issue of foul language with at least two orthodox priests whose mission is working with people in Hollywood, and they both said as long as foul language isn’t intended to seriously blaspheme God, used to describe sexual acts or outright anger/hatred towards someone, the F word shouldn’t concern anyone as being sinful. McCarthy’s films are sex-free and her anger is so ridiculously over the top that one could never take it seriously, so I’ll just say that I think most grown adults will have an absolute blast at this movie.

Actually, there are two other caveats about the film: the action is surprisingly intense, and several shootings spew blood, and there’s a moment where a poisoned drink burns through a man’s throat. It’s graphic but quick and followed by an absurd moment almost immediately. And in the one truly offensive moment of the film, a man’s cell phone photos reveal a couple of very fast images of his penis. They are almost literally blink and you’ll miss it, however, though it would have of course been preferable to avoid them altogether.

“Spy” follows a woman named Susan Cooper (McCarthy), who is the harried secretary of CIA superspy Bradley Fine (Jude Law). She serves as the eyes and ears for Fine on his missions, observing his surroundings via surveillance cameras and warning him where the bad guys are in a room so he can kill them before they get him.

But only James Bond can be perfect, and he’s shot dead by a ruthless international arms dealer named Reyna Boyanov (Rose Byrne) while tracking her to prevent Boyanov from selling a nuclear bomb to another international rogue figure. Boyanov reveals to Susan that she has the information on the next four most important CIA assassins, including Rick Ford (Jason Statham), and that she can kill any and all of them as a result.

And so it is that the head of the superspies (Alison Janney) needs to send someone unknown and unrecognized In to tail Boyanov before she can sell off her nuke. And Susan volunteers for the job, since she’s flown so far under the radar her entire career that no one could possibly recognize her. Ford thinks the idea of sending Susan is dangerous and absurd, but the spy boss observes that Susan was a surprisingly adept hand to hand combat master and expert shooter in her CIA training videos and decides to send her in anyway.

Thus begins an utterly ridiculous series of misadventures, as Susan is sent to one European locale after another, each time with a different insanely funny costume and fake personality: a cat lady with 10 cats in one location, an old lady from Iowa in another. Against orders, Ford has followed her to Europe in the hopes of killing Boyanov the second they find her, and he and Susan wind up engaged in an ever-growing rivalry throughout the film.

The movie’s plot gets ridiculously complicated while remaining utterly silly fun throughout, as it is nearly impossible not to laugh at McCarthy’s ample physical-comedy talents – including hand to hand combat, knife fighting and an amazing chase scene where she rides a scooter in amazing fashion - and vituperative mouth. Again, if you really can’t handle swearing, steer clear, but anyone else will find themselves doubled over with laughter so much their sides will literally ache by the end.