Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what movies I’ve seen over the past week. Below, you will find short reviews of those movies along with a star rating. Full length reviews may come at a later date.

So, here is what I watched this past week:

Spy

Bridesmaids was an incredibly funny comedy that took us behind the scenes of a disastrous wedding in free fall. It had charm and wit, but seemed like a fairly common comedy. Spy does something quite different. It takes us places we expect, but then turns itself into something a little more.

Melissa McCarthy is a hit-or-miss comedienne. Her performances are wildly off-the-wall, but sometimes teeter on self-mockery. Here, she shows us what we originally fell in love with when watching her. She has a spectacular style of comic delivery that’s both self-abusive and self-deprecating, but never entirely debasing. This is her working at the top of her game with brilliant delivery and an appreciation for physical comedy.

Not to upstage her, but nearly doing so, Rose Byrne cements herself as one of the finest working comedic actresses. She brightens up every film she’s in taking it to a level much higher than it would be without her. Her impeccable talent brilliantly skewers gender norms in the medium and it gives Spy a superb boost. This will also probably be the only time I’m ever appreciative of Jason Statham. Normally, I find him unlikable, charmless and talentless. Surprisingly, Paul Feig finds a side of him that not only allows him to take himself in a new direction, but ultimately creates something utterly surprising with it.

Spy has some wonderfully humorous moments, makes the most of its R rating and generates some of the strongest comic moments as a result. There’s even a strong feminist vibe issuing from the film where all of the women, in spite of their society-imposed flaws, are significantly funnier and more competent than their male counterparts, upending a traditionally male-dominated medium.