SPY (15, 120 mins)

Director: Paul Feig

4 stars

It's doubtful there's another director out there doing what Paul Feig is doing just now. Which is to say smart, funny female-driven comedies that are well received by moviegoers and critics alike, and which make a lot of money.

Bridesmaids was his calling card four years ago, and was the first opportunity for most audiences to see Melissa McCarthy in action. Bridesmaids made her a star and nabbed her an Oscar nomination, before she and Feig reteamed for The Heat two years later.

Now their third collaboration, Spy, continues their cracking hit rate of comedies with wide appeal, great characters and successful jokes. McCarthy is CIA analyst Susan Cooper, who spends her days behind a desk guiding Agent Fine (Jude Law). He's a superspy sent into Eastern Europe on a mission and Susan is his eyes and ears, directing his every move, telling him where the bad guys are and even orchestrating remote controlled drone explosions. He couldn't do his job without her, although she also happens to be in love with him.

The opening stages aren't especially encouraging, focussing on how much of an underdog Susan is, and it's maybe a bit more setup than we really needed. The Bond style opening credits and theme song let us know exactly what's being parodied here, but it's not a spoof so much as a heightened version of the inherent silliness of spy movies.

Rose Byrne is the arms dealer the CIA is trying to bring down, but it transpires that she knows the identities of all the agents who are after her, Fine included. With him out of the picture, Susan volunteers for the mission since she's the only person whose identity isn't known to the baddies, so off she goes to Europe to track and report on Byrne, not to engage.

But of course she gets mixed up in the shenanigans and has to prove herself as a real spy. It's a perfect piece of casting in McCarthy, who has come through a couple of stumbles with the brashness of Tammy and Identity Thief to once again play a character who is an unlikely hero, dowdy and unnoticed, but smart and loveable.

In either the most crazy or ingenious bit of casting possible, Jason Statham is brought on board as a fellow agent, and he more or less steals the show. What makes Statham so funny is that it seems no one has told him he's in a comedy. He plays it completely straight and serious, albeit ridiculous, as he time and again growls sternly about how he's a proper agent, and how good he is. His boasts at his spying exploits become increasingly hilarious as he lists all the ways in which he's nearly died in the line of duty.

But it's not like Susan is a Clouseau-like character, she's actually a very good agent who just hasn't had any field experience yet, and Feig plays well on the sexism of the genre (both on-screen and our preconceptions of it) and Susan not being conventionally attractive.

It's also surprisingly robust as an action movie, with the competently executed fight scenes meaning it works pretty well as an overall package. After that shaky start, it grows to be consistently very funny indeed, with everyone involved on top form. Peter Serafinowicz as a sleazy Italian agent is a hoot and some of the best byplay takes place between Susan and her boss (Allison Janney, enjoying herself in a sweary role).

Spy isn't perfect though; it's too long, sometimes overstuffed with a plot that eventually gives up entirely on being comprehensible, and it can occasionally be seen to be trying too hard. That's particularly true when it comes to Byrne, whose character is too quick to lean on a profanity as the sole source of the joke.

But that level of uncompromising crudity is where these movies often make their mark, and time and again a well placed line hits the bullseye. Spy is a decent action movie and a very good comedy, and hopefully McCarthy and Feig can keep knocking them out the park for the foreseeable future.

ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: THE WILD UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS (18, 106 mins)

Director: Mark Hartley

4 stars

This exceptional documentary charts the rise and fall of Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, who took over production company Cannon Films at the end of the 70s.

Over the next decade this pair of larger than life characters would churn out many dozens of cheap action movies, most of which seemed to star Chuck Norris, as we're regaled with fascinating tales of their chutzpah and their hubris from the people who worked with them.

The anecdotes from these talking heads are good enough on their own, but it's the clips from the movies where the real treats often lie, junk piles of trash and exploitation that take us through increasingly tawdry Death Wish sequels and even the occasional respectable hit, to attracting stars like Stallone when their ambitions soared.

Bringing together the best and worst excesses of 80s moviemaking in one wildly entertaining package, this is great stuff for film history fans, and you haven't seen bad cinema until you've seen Lou Ferrigno as Hercules throwing a bear into space.

LISTEN UP PHILIP (15, 109 mins)

Director: Alex Ross Perry

2 stars

The trick with films where the main character is as loathsome as the one in Listen Up Philip is to at least make their situation or journey an interesting one for an audience who may otherwise struggle to engage.

Unfortunately there are only the briefest indications of that here with Jason Schwartzman's Philip, a self-obsessed, egotistical writer who refuses to promote his second book, struggles to continue writing and alienates all the people in his life with his inability to act like a remotely decent human being.

For a spell in the middle the focus switches to Elizabeth Moss as his long-suffering girlfriend and then a mentor (Jonathan Pryce) whose successful decades are long behind him and who's just as much of a sociopath as Philip is.

Sadly it turns out there's little of note there either, nor in most of a film featuring an utter lack of direction or purpose, where the flashes of insight disappear in the smog of the raging misanthropy.

It's visually deeply unappealing too, looking like it was shot with an old camcorder, shaky and out of focus and with wavering sound depending where the actors are in the room.

Maybe there's an outside chance this is actually a biting parody of the human condition, but more likely than not it's just bad.