It's ridiculous how much fun this movie is, considering it isn't the first spy spoof we've seen. But fun it is -- finally, a film that truly showcases McCarthy's prodigious talents, and all without putting her in the usual position of being the brunt of jokes about her weight. Once she comes into her own, Susan Cooper is smart, sassy, strategic, resourceful, and strong. Yes, she's subjected to some disguises that tend toward "crazy cat lady" stereotypes, but she smashes those along with plenty of other ones. Bravo!

Kudos, too, to the rest of the cast, especially the (surprisingly) irreverent Statham, who's essentially making fun of every other "serious action hero" he's portrayed in movies before this. Law is James Bond with a sense of humor. And Byrne is beyond brilliant: She knows where the humorous beats are and always hits them just in time. Perhaps the only major complaint with Spy is that it does still rely a bit too often on jokes that presuppose McCarthy isn't conventionally attractive, an assumption that's pretty long in the tooth. Next time, perhaps, filmmakers will no longer need to point out how "different" she is from the typical Hollywood bombshell, and the "realization" that she's awesome won't be such a big reveal.