Spy

Melissa McCarthy becomes a bona-fide movie star in Spy, reteaming with Paul Feig who directed her in Bridesmaids and The Heat. She plays a CIA desk agent sent into the field to gather intelligence on Rose Byrne's criminal mastermind. However, she immediately breaks protocol by sidling up to said villainess with all the subtlety of a boulder. This is followed by McCarthy bumbling her way through glamorous European locations in high-octane style, hobbled by a less than glamorous disguise (complete with spy gadgets packed to look like haemorrhoid treatments). Feig scores plenty of laughs by making McCarthy look laughably incongruous when she should be inconspicuous, and her banter with old Bridesmaids comrade Byrne, as she strikes up an unlikely friendship, is deliciously bitchy fun. Miranda Hart isa tad jarring as McCarthy's sidekick, but Jason Statham is Feig's secret weapon as a super-agent who thinks he's better qualified than McCarthy and tells her exactly why in hilariously excruciating detail. Still, this is McCarthy's show. She carries the film with huge charm, razor-sharp comic instincts and surprising chop-socky skills.