Nothing kills me! I’m immune to 179 different types of poison. I know, because I ingested them all at once when I was deep undercover in an underground, poison-ingesting crime ring.

Spy

(2015)

Paul Feig labours under the curse of Apatow. I don’t mean his penchant for orifice humour, although that is abundant, but rather the illusion that the perfect length for a comedy is no less than two hours. There’s a very funny movie lurking within Spy, but its definitely no more than 100 minutes long. Which is half an hour longer than the extended cut.

One of the raft of 2015 espionage movies, Spy brandishes a better Bond theme than the actual Bond movie and, in Jude Law, someone with a suavity Daniel Craig lacks (this was also true of the main players in Kingsman and Man from U.N.C.L.E, though). Feig is no action director, but then neither is Sam Mendes especially, and as a writer he sticks to a fairly unimaginative, well-explored genre-riffing template, albeit with a minor but key twist; Melissa McCarthy’s desk jockey Susan Cooper, assistant to super secret agent Bradley Fine (Law) is actually highly capable in her own right.

This is a huge step up from the underwhelming and tired The Heat, although just as dependent on formula (the MacGuffin’s a nuke) and comedy stars’ improv skills to keep ticking over. McCarthy’s obligatory faux-sincere journey is one of developing self-respect and moving beyond her infatuation with Fine; the attractive people, Fine (Law’s hairpiece is firmly in place) and Rose Byrne’s Rayna Boyanov (and Morena Baccarin, naturally) are entirely self-involved and/or obnoxious.

McCarthy is on good vulgar form, particularly when she’s called upon to be antagonist (and most especially so to Bjorn Gustafsson’s “reject from the Sound of Music” Anton; “You look like Abba took a shit and put a trenchcoat on it”). Miranda Hart, playing Miranda Hart (well, Nancy B Artingstall, but same difference) is the latest Brit comedy export who flounders in a sea of Hollywood. Byrne (“You look like an Ewok died on your head”) plays it appropriately straight as Feig’s go-to bitch (see also Bridesmaids) and Allison Janney perfectly pitches the hard-assed boss. Peter Serafinowicz gives either a good performance as a horny British spy badly impersonating an Italian agent (“Was Pepé le Pew not available?”), or a terrible performance as an Italian who can rehearse a good British spy. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. 50 Cent isn’t funny, and can’t act, but I think we knew that.

There’s much play on spy tropes, including gadgets taking the form of undesirable personal healthcare items such as anti-fungal spray and stool softener. There’s also copious gross-out (vomiting on grotesquely impaled corpses) and inessential unrated cut envelope-pushing (erect penises are so in at the moment).

Stealing the show, though, is the Stat as supremely incompetent and ignorant agent Rick Ford. Unrepentantly coarse (“Twot means something completely different in England”), even under threat of reprimand from the HR Department, Rick is entirely gullible (“I go into the Face/Off machine and get a whole new face”) and a font of endless tall tales about his exploits (“This arm has been ripped off completely, and reattached with this fucking arm”, he has Posed as Barack Obama; “In black face?”), and boasts “Nothing kills me! I’m immune to 179 different types of poison. I know, because I ingested them all at once when I was deep undercover in an underground, poison-ingesting crime ring”). The Stat doesn’t try to be funny, very wisely, he just winds his hard action man act up to 11 and keeps on going.

Spy isn’t dull, and a good quotient of its gags are pretty funny (although Feig’s idea of quality control appears to be to give everything a pass), but It’s just too damn long to hit a consistent stride. That may not matter with his next outing, the femme-centric redux of Ghostbusters, but it’s about time someone remembered that comedies should leave you wanting more, rather than all tapped out.

You were this amazing occidental samurai.

Ricochet (1991) (SPOILERS) You have to wonder at Denzel Washington’s agent at this point in the actor’s career. He’d recently won his first Oscar for Glory , yet followed it with less-than-glorious heart-transplant ghost comedy Heart Condition (Bob Hoskins’ racist cop receives Washington’s dead lawyer’s ticker; a recipe for hijinks!) Not long after, he dipped his tentative toe in the action arena with this Joel Silver production; Denzel has made his share of action fare since, of course, most of it serviceable if unremarkable, but none of it comes near to delivering the schlocky excesses of Ricochet , a movie at once ingenious and risible in its plot permutations, performances and production profligacy.

No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

The Matrix (1999) (SPOILERS) Twenty years on, and the articles are on the defining nature of The Matrix are piling up, most of them touching on how its world has become a reality, or maybe always was one. At the time, its premise was engaging enough, but it was the sum total of the package that cast a spell – the bullet time, the fashions, the soundtrack, the comic book-as-live-action framing and styling – not to mention it being probably the first movie to embrace and reflect the burgeoning Internet ( Hackers doesn’t really count), and subsequently to really ride the crest of the DVD boom wave. And now? Now it’s still really, really good.

Well, something’s broke on your daddy’s spaceship.

Apollo 13 (1995) (SPOILERS) The NASA propaganda movie to end all NASA propaganda movies. Their original conception of the perilous Apollo 13 mission deserves due credit in itself; what better way to bolster waning interest in slightly naff perambulations around a TV studio than to manufacture a crisis event, one emphasising the absurd fragility of the alleged non-terrestrial excursions and the indomitable force that is “science” in achieving them? Apollo 13 the lunar mission was tailor made for Apollo 13 the movie version – make believe the make-believe – and who could have been better to lead this fantasy ride than Guantanamo Hanks at his all-American popularity peak?

I can’t be the worst. What about that hotdog one?

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) (SPOILERS) It would have been a merciful release, had the title card “ The End ”, flashing on screen a little before the ninety-minute mark, not been a false dawn. True, I would still have been unable to swab the bloody dildoes fight from my mind, but at least Everything Everywhere All at Once would have been short. Indeed, by the actual end I was put in mind of a line spoken by co-star James Wong in one of his most indelible roles: “ Now this really pisses me off to no end ”. Or to put it another way, Everything Everywhere All at Once rubbed me up the wrong which way quite a lot of most of the time.

We’ve got the best ball and chain in the world. Your ass.

Wedlock (1991) (SPOILERS) The futuristic prison movie seemed possessed of a particular cachet around this time, quite possibly sparked by the grisly possibilities of hi-tech disincentives to escape. On that front, HBO TV movie Wedlock more than delivers its FX money shot. Elsewhere, it’s less sure of itself, rather fumbling when it exchanges prison tropes for fugitives-on-the-run ones.

Drank the red. Good for you.

Morbius (2022) (SPOILERS) Generic isn’t necessarily a slur. Not if, by implication, it’s suggestive of the kind of movie made twenty years ago, when the alternative is the kind of super-woke content Disney currently prioritises. Unfortunately, after a reasonable first hour, Morbius descends so resignedly into such unmoderated formula that you’re left with a too-clear image of Sony’s Spider-Verse when it lacks a larger-than-life performer (Tom Hardy, for example) at the centre of any given vehicle.

So, you’re telling me that NASA is going to kill the President of the United States with an earthquake?

Conspiracy Theory (1997) (SPOILERS) Mel Gibson’s official rehabilitation occurred with the announcement of 2016’s Oscar nominations, when Hacksaw Ridge garnered six nods, including Mel as director. Obviously, many refuse to be persuaded that there’s any legitimate atonement for the things someone says. They probably weren’t even convinced by Mel’s appearance in Daddy’s Home 2 , an act of abject obeisance if ever there was one. In other circles, though, Gibbo, or Mad Mel, is venerated as a saviour unsullied by the depraved Hollywood machine, one of the brave few who would not allow them to take his freedom. Or at least, his values. Of course, that’s frequently based on alleged comments he made, ones it’s highly likely he didn’t. But doesn’t that rather appeal to the premise of his 23-year-old star vehicle Conspiracy Theory , in which “ A good conspiracy theory is an unproveable one ”?

Twenty dwarves took turns doing handstands on the carpet.

Bugsy (1991) (SPOILERS) Bugsy is very much a Warren Beatty vanity project (aren’t they all, even the ones that don’t seem that way on the surface?), to the extent of his playing a title character a decade and a half younger than him. As such, it makes sense that producer Warren’s choice of director wouldn’t be inclined to overshadow star Warren, but the effect is to end up with a movie that, for all its considerable merits (including a script from James Toback chock full of incident), never really feels quite focussed, that it’s destined to lead anywhere, even if we know where it’s going.

He’ll regret it to his dying day, if ever he lives that long.

The Quiet Man (1952) (SPOILERS) The John Wayne & John Ford film for those who don’t like John Wayne & John Ford films? The Quiet Man takes its cues from Ford’s earlier How Green Was My Valley in terms of, well less Anglophile and Hibernophile and Cambrophile nostalgia respectively for past times, climes and heritage, as Wayne’s pugilist returns to his family seat and stirs up a hot bed of emotions, not least with Maureen O’Hara’s red-headed hothead. The result is a very likeable movie, for all its inculcated Oirishness and studied eccentricity.

He doesn’t want to lead you. He just wants you to follow.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022) (SPOILERS) The general failing of the prequel concept is a fairly self-evident one; it’s spurred by the desire to cash in, rather than to tell a story. This is why so few prequels, in any form, are worth the viewer/reader/listener’s time, in and of themselves. At best, they tend to be something of a well-rehearsed fait accompli. In the movie medium, even when there is material that withstands closer inspection (the Star Wars prequels; The Hobbit , if you like), the execution ends up botched. With Fantastic Beasts , there was never a whiff of such lofty purpose, and each subsequent sequel to the first prequel has succeeded only in drawing attention to its prosaic function: keeping franchise flag flying, even at half-mast. Hence Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore , belatedly arriving after twice the envisaged gap between instalments and course-correcting none of the problems present in The Crimes of Grindelwald .

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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