Many critics argued that the last Bond film, Skyfall, mistreated its female characters, even by the less-than-progressive standards of the 007 franchise. The problem wasn’t just that it killed off two of its leading ladies. What was more upsetting was that Naomie Harris’s Eve started the film as an intrepid field agent, only to finish it as Miss Moneypenny, the ever-pining secretary whose sole purpose in life is to sit outside M’s inner sanctum, and say, "You can go through now, James.”

The splendid new Melissa McCarthy vehicle, Spy, is Skyfall in reverse (‘Earthrise’, I suppose). Written and directed by Paul Feig, who worked with McCarthy on Bridesmaids and The Heat, the film imagines Miss Moneypenny making the transition from deskbound personal assistant to world-saving action hero. Quite apart from being a raucously funny comedy, it could be the most significant feminist film of the year.

McCarthy plays Susan Cooper, a CIA agent whose duties aren’t much more energetic than Moneypenny’s. While a dapper Bond-alike, Bradley Fine (Jude Law), is out despatching bad guys at swanky parties, Susan is keeping a high-tech eye on him back at the Agency’s headquarters, and feeding him information via his earpiece. As she tells her friend Nancy (Miranda Hart, the British star of Call the Midwife), her job isn’t quite as thrilling as the one she dreamt of when she joined the CIA, but she is so shaken and stirred by Bradley that she is willing to stay in a dingy basement office while he is out hotwiring speedboats. Personally, I would have been happy if Susan and Bradley’s situation had carried on like that, too. The comic chemistry between the vain superspy and his lovestruck Girl Friday is sparkling, and the contrast between his martini-sipping escapades and her call-centre drudgery could have sustained a fine Hollywood comedy on its own.

Everything changes, though, when a big-haired criminal mastermind, Rayna (Rose Byrne), uncovers the identities of the CIA’s active agents – another Skyfall echo – making it impossible for Bradley to catch her unawares. With only a few days to stop Rayna selling a nuclear device to a Chechen terrorist, it’s Susan’s chance to get away from her desk and into action.

On hilarity’s secret service

Considering Susan’s inexperience, as well as McCarthy’s gift for self-humiliating physical comedy, it seems as if she’ll make a mess of her mission, like the heroes of countless Bond spoofs before her. But what’s exhilarating about Spy is that it treats Susan with respect and affection. For all of McCarthy’s expertly performed pratfalls and faux pas, the film is careful to balance its jokes about Susan’s lack of confidence with reminders that she is, nonetheless, far more competent than Johnny English and Maxwell Smart ever were. She may vomit colourfully over an enemy agent, but not until she has defeated him in hand-to-hand combat. The CIA may disguise her as a frumpy geek with 10 pet cats, but she comes up with her own glamorous alter ego soonenough. And she may have an unrequited crush on Bradley, but when a libidinous Italian colleague, Aldi (Peter Serafinowicz), makes a move on her, she is more than capable of resisting his oily charms.

Susan can even hold her own against the film’s two most hilariously obnoxious characters: Rayna, who delivers toxic insults with the condescending serenity of a duchess at a village fete, and Jason Statham’s Rick Ford, a manically intense hardman who can’t stop ranting about his macho exploits. He, Aldi and Bradley are essentially James Bond distilled into three separate characters – the fighter, the seducer, and the suave socialite – and Susan outclasses them all.

It’s difficult for a comedy to present its heroine as a dowdy innocent who is childishly excited about travelling to Paris and Rome, while also presenting her as a quick-witted professional who can foil an international conspiracy. And it’s just as difficult for a comedy to be packed with farcical silliness while still making us care about its heroine’s career frustrations and romantic yearnings. But Feig and McCarthy pull off these empowering tricks with deceptive ease. Not that they tackle every aspect of their film quite as skilfully. The nuclear-device plot manages to be both boringly simple and incomprehensible, and several characters are wasted: Bobby Cannavale’s flashy arms dealer might as well have been edited out altogether. There are also too many punchlines that rely on swearing, which seems a shame in a comedy which would otherwise have been essential family viewing. And I think we can all agree that no film needs one 50 Cent cameo, let alone two.

But if there are some slapdash elements to Spy, its central character has been developed with loving care and attention. She deserves to be hailed as a feminist icon, and she certainly deserves to return for a sequel. This Miss Moneypenny could be worth billions.

(BBC)