Movie Reviews: Spy, Listen Up Philip, Search Party

The suave but lethal Bradley Fine (Jude Law) is the CIA’s most successful Spy (12A), but when Bradley is killed by Balkan villain Rayna Boyanov (Rose Byrne), Bradley’s deskbound analyst Susan ‘Coop’ Cooper (Melissa McCarthy) is sent into the field to track down the ‘mini-nuke’ Bradley was pursuing.

The note-perfect James Bond pastiche of the opening credits sets the tone for writer-director Paul Feig’s (Bridesmaids) spoof of the spy genre, as Coop – who has always craved the glamour of the spy game’s fieldwork – finds herself flitting from Paris to Rome and on to Budapest, albeit in an increasingly embarrassing series of disguises, aided and abetted by rogue agent Rick Ford (Jason Statham) and her analyst pal Nancy (Miranda Hart).