{"id":150,"date":"2015-07-12T21:27:21","date_gmt":"2015-07-13T01:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ackthud.net\/AisleSeat\/?p=150"},"modified":"2015-07-12T22:09:55","modified_gmt":"2015-07-13T02:09:55","slug":"spy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ackthud.net\/AisleSeat\/2015\/07\/12\/spy\/","title":{"rendered":"Spy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spy<\/a>\u00a0is the latest collaboration\u00a0from Melissa McCarthy and Paul Feig. They’ve worked together on such films as The Heat and, of course, Bridesmaids.<\/p>\n

Melissa McCarthy works at the CIA. \u00a0She plays Susan\u00a0Cooper, a support agent for Bradley Fine (Jude Law). \u00a0Bradley is the perfect spy, suave, smooth, and talented, essentially an American James Bond. \u00a0Sharon acts as his\u00a0external eyes and ears, directing him to where the action is, and where he can make a quick escape. \u00a0He’s hot on the trail of a\u00a0someone who’s about to sell\u00a0a small\u00a0nuclear weapon to the highest bidder. \u00a0Bradley confronts him, and accidentally kills him before he reveals the location of the bomb. \u00a0Chaos ensues, and escapes, but only with Susan’s help.<\/p>\n

Undaunted by this tremendous setback, Fine chooses to follow his target’s daughter Rayna (Rose Byne), who will be resuming the negotiations\u00a0ASAP, so time is short. He sneaks into Rayna’s home and is found out. \u00a0He is killed, but not before Rayna reveals she knows who he is, and also claims to know every current field agent who would stop her.<\/p>\n

The head of the CIA’s operations, Elaine Crocker (Allison Janney), realizes what’s at stake, but also that they can’t send their top agents anywhere near Rayna. \u00a0 Crocker is forced to choose Susan, who had passed all the requirements of field service, but was commandeered by Fine. \u00a0This angers agent Rick Ford, who wants to avenge Bradley’s death, as well as find the bomb. So, off goes Susan, and the typical spy sequences occur. She’s given a cover, but it’s of some frumpy, middle aged woman on vacation.\u00a0Her best friend\/co-worker Nancy (Miranda Hart) becomes her handler, and guides her onward, who behaves as one expects Miranda Hart to behave.<\/p>\n

At this point, one would expect the bumbling-agent-stumbles-toward-victory kind of movie, but that’s not exactly what happens. Susan is more than competent, and manages to stay focused enough to\u00a0go with the events that transpire.<\/p>\n

Mind you, this is a comedy. \u00a0I find it funny in places, and there are funny elements in the film, including\u00a0several good laughs (one or two spoiled by the trailer). \u00a0Jason Statham plays it straight, and is intentionally untentionally comedic. At its heart, though,\u00a0Spy<\/a>\u00a0is\u00a0an action movie, and it’s not bad. \u00a0There are some plot holes that you could probably drive a truck through, but we’ll forgive those, as they’re a part of any film in the spy movie genre.<\/p>\n

There is a mid-credits scene that’s worth waiting for.<\/p>\n

Recommended, but you can wait until it’s up for rental.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spy\u00a0is the latest collaboration\u00a0from Melissa McCarthy and Paul Feig. They’ve worked together on such films as The Heat and, of course, Bridesmaids. Melissa McCarthy works at the CIA. \u00a0She plays Susan\u00a0Cooper, a support agent for Bradley Fine (Jude Law). \u00a0Bradley is the perfect spy, suave, smooth, and talented, essentially an American James Bond. \u00a0Sharon acts … Continue reading Spy<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-review"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s5Fv6s-spy","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ackthud.net\/AisleSeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ackthud.net\/AisleSeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ackthud.net\/AisleSeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ackthud.net\/AisleSeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ackthud.net\/AisleSeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ackthud.net\/AisleSeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":156,"href":"https:\/\/www.ackthud.net\/AisleSeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions\/156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ackthud.net\/AisleSeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ackthud.net\/AisleSeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ackthud.net\/AisleSeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}