Easily the best comedy of the year so far, Spy is also the best film yet for both Paul Feig and Melissa McCarthy.

After CIA agent Bradley Fine (Jude Law) accidentally kills an arms dealer who has hidden a nuclear weapon the Agency must turn its attention to the dealer’s daughter Rayna Boyanov (Rose Byrne) who is the last person alive who knows where the bomb is. Unfortunately, Rayna also knows the identity of all of the CIA’s covert operatives so Analyst Susan Cooper (Melissa McCarthy) volunteers to go under cover to observe and track Boyanov’s whereabouts by following Sergio De Luca (Bobby Canavale) who is attempting to broker the deal to sell the nuke. Of course things get dicey when disenfranchised Rick Ford (Jason Statham) goes rogue and complicates matters.

Right of the bat, I was skeptical of this movie as McCarthy has kind of fallen into a schtick in which she plays a character who is either needlessly mean or desperately stupid or sometimes both at the same time. It is a real bummer when she does this because when she is given proper material she is fantastic. Her collaborations with Feig have been great which was encouraging but I was still worried this would be a movie about bumbling ineptitude mixed with over the top nastiness. I was so wrong. So very wrong.

My absolute favorite thing about this movie is that McCarthy’s Susan Cooper is very good at her job. She is capable and talented and has the proper training to do the things she needs to do. She has been behind a desk for 10 years and lacks real world experience but her role as tactical support for her field agent means that she knows the ins and outs of the job and the comedy here is not at her expense as much as it is just sending up the spy genre in general. This doesn’t mean that everything goes right but it does me that Cooper is not the butt of the jokes and the comedy never feels cheap or exploitative.

Explaining comedy never goes well in reviews but I will say that Spy is consistently funny from start to finish and features terrific writing and amazing performances by all involved. The comedy itself ranges from snappy, smart dialogue to the absurd and everything in between. Coupled with a crisp pace that never drags and always keeps the audience engaged, Spy is as solid a two hour comedy as you are likely to ever see.

If it was just a question of solid comedy that would be fine but Spy also offers some genuinely exciting action scenes with a surprising amount of violence and gore. The film doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to action and it takes the spy aspects of the film seriously enough that it doesn’t just feel gimmicky or false. This is a delicate balance to strike in a movie like this and Spy handles it perfectly.

As mentioned the performances are fantastic and everyone does great work here. McCarthy shows off her considerable skills as she has to switch cover identities on the fly why still maintaining her baseline character. Statham is a huge stand out as he plays his character’s macho bluster for laughs and is against his usual type. The dynamic between Statham and McCarthy is great and I could just watch the two of them for an entire film. Rose Byrne elevates arch snarkiness to a whole new level with a character who is always blunt and straight forward and again the dynamic between her an McCarthy is top notch.

The supporting roles are performed excellently as well with Allison Janney perfectly nailing Copper’s boss, Peter Serafinowicz terrific as an over amorous french agent, Miranda Hart standing out as Cooper’s best friend and new tactical coordinator, and Jude Law as American agent Bradley Fine. It was a little weird that Law went for an American accent when Statham kept his British one but whatever. The accent wasn’t bad as much as it was weird hearing him do it.  Also, Bobby Canavale did such a great job I didn’t even recognize him until the third act.

Conclusion [10 out of 10]

This has been a pretty great summer so far as this is the third 10 I have given out of the summer but Spy deserves it as much as the other two. It is comedy firing all cylinders with everyone involved on the top of their game. This movie has all but erased my concerns about Feig’s Ghostbusters remake and that is probably the highest praise I could give it. Spy is great and I enjoyed every moment of it.