Spies in Disguise (2019)

Starring: Will Smith, Tom Holland, Rashida Jones, Ben Mendelsohn, Reba McEntire, Karen Gillan, DJ Khaled, and Mark Ronson
Grade: B-

At one point, it is understood that antagonist Killian is going to Venice to steal the Agent Database. There, he’ll know the identities to everyone at the agency and can use the M9 Assassin to do it. This is almost the exact reason why the xXx program was invented. If they wanted to stop this guy, screw the pigeon. Get Xander Cage on the phone immediately!

Summary

As a child, a young Walter Beckett is an excitable and inventive kid with a single mother, Wendy (Rachel Brosnahan). Wendy is a cop, and she finds Walter in the morning before she goes to work. He’s creating a toy watch and talks about how it has the ability to protect her in several different ways like one button making a really loud noise to incapacitate enemies, another button that can wrap her in an inflatable hug so no one can hurt her, and the last one is for when she is outnumbered. It shoots out a glitter cloud to distract because “glitter makes people happy”. Initially, he explains this scientifically, but he changes it to the simplified version for Wendy. Though it seems like Walter just made it all up, he tests the glitter button in the house, and it works. Despite the fact that he took apart Wendy’s phone to do it, she’s happy to see how good he is at what he’s doing. When he talks about adding kitten visuals, Wendy gets a call to come in on her radio, so she gets ready to head out. He wants to come with, especially because he doesn’t want to go to school since everyone thinks he’s weird. Wendy stops and asks what’s wrong with being weird. One day, Walter’s ideas and gadgets are going to keep the world safe, and “everybody will wish they were as weird as you”. Before leaving, she says she’ll always have his back, and they refer to themselves as “Team Weird”.

14 years later in Japan, Special Agent Lance Sterling (Smith) infiltrates the house of arms dealer Katsu Kimura (Masi Oka). After disarming two guys outside of the place with ease, a pigeon shits on the bodies. Lance calls the pigeons “rats with wings”, as a lot of us do. He sends two drones in to Kimura’s building and calls in to the director of the H.T.U.V. (Honor, Trust, Unity and Valor) in Joy Jenkins (McEntire) to update her on the situation. From two different locations, Lance and Joy watch the drones to see what’s happening on the inside and they see a briefcase next to Kimura. This briefcase is the objective. It contains the M9 Assassin, the first semi-autonomous attack drone powered by atmospheric energy. It never stops pursuing its target. These bad guys stole it from their covert weapons lab. Just then, they get a reading that 70 yakuza are headed Lance’s way. Since she doesn’t want another incident like Kyrgyzstan, she tells Lance to stand down and wait for the backup team. Lance laughs this off because he flies solo. Lance sneaks into a fish tank with scuba gear and can see Kimura tell the others that the buyer is here. The buyer is Killian (Mendelsohn), and he shows up on a helicopter. Once Killian approaches Kimura, Lance sees that Killian has a bionic claw for one of his hands. Seeing a transaction about to happen, Lance breaks through the fish tank and takes out a bunch of yakuza with the water and starts kicking ass. He demands the briefcase from Kimura, who is very aware of who Lance is, but he refuses. He runs at Lance, but Lance takes him out with one chop to a nerve in his neck. Killian chokes him however and tries to jog Lance’s memory of him since they have history. They have a scuffle, and Lance is able to escape his clutch by falling onto a table that sends a loose eel from the fish tank onto Killian. With the briefcase between them, the rest of the yakuza show up and circle Lance.

This allows Killian to pick it up and escape. Next, the yakuza closes in on Lance. Outnumbered, Lance pulls out a gadget and presses a button. Glitter shoots out everywhere, as do visuals of a kitten. The yakuza members are enamored, as is Lance for a moment before he shakes himself out of it. Using another gadget to break off the gong in the room as he fights a bunch of bad guys off of him, he puts a detonator under the gong once it falls flat. He steps on it, and it explodes, propelling him through the roof. He flies straight into Killian’s open helicopter, grabs the briefcase, and flies right back out in one motion. As he nosedives, he turns on his built-in wingsuit, and it helps him fly away safely. Soon after, Lance is back in Washington D.C. and goes straight to H.T.U.V. headquarters, which is located under the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Once he enters the building, every worker there takes notice. Lance is the world’s greatest spy and the world’s coolest. They are in awe of his presence, and he loves the attention. He greets everyone and heads into the elevator. When he adjusts his suit jacket though, the remnants of glitter and kitten visuals shoot out. The people who see it love it, but this reminds Lance how perturbed he is about the whole thing and plans on finding who did this. He heads down to the weapons lab where all the scientists are testing violent weapons. Showing the glitter in his jacket and a noticeable scowl, one of the female scientists point him in the direction of the now grown Walter Beckett (Holland).

Walter is in the middle of testing a new gadget in his office and is interrupted by a colleague walking through, so he asks him if he still wants to watch the season finale of Hearts in Seoul with him. The guy avoids answering, and they are both interrupted by Lance. Lance gets in Walter’s face about messing with his stuff and how he has to fight fire with fire in the field because if he fights fire with glitter, he can get his face burned off. Still, Walter argues that the “Kitty Glitter” gadget worked because it’s scientifically proven that watching kittens causes the enterochromaffin cells to release serotonin, or “Glitter makes people happy”. Lance counters with how a grenade is even better, but Walter thinks it’s too violent. When Lance says they can’t save people with a hug, Walter shows him his new personal protection device he’s been developing, the inflatable hug. Using it on a stuffed animal, he presses the button on it, and an inflatable shield completely encases the toy. Lance is unimpressed, but Walter argues they should spend more time bringing people together rather than blowing them up. If he can convince Lance, they can convince the whole agency, but Lance is already uninterested in his pitch and leaves his office. Getting into the elevator and basically trying to escape Walter at this point, Walter runs right into the elevator with him before dropping all of his stuff. As Lance catches Walter’s pen and analyzes it, Walter goes on about another idea, an idea that could change spying forever. What if he could make Lance disappear? It’s called bio-dynamic concealment. Just then, Lance accidentally presses a button on the pen, and it shoots Walter, turning his entire body into a gelatinous structure. As Walter lays on the ground, explaining that it’s not a big deal because the effects are temporary, he says that no one ever listens to him or his ideas. However, if Lance did and they did this together, they could really make a difference.

Once again, Lance has no interest. All he wants is for Walter to make him a grenade when he wants a grenade. When he asks Walter if he can do this simple task, Walter still responds by saying there is a better way. Lance has enough and fires him. When Lance exits the elevator, Walter is still pleading with him not to fire him, and a bunch of co-workers awkwardly stand there in front of the elevator. They all decide not to use it. Before the door closes on Walter, someone calls him a weirdo.

Entering a private room to meet with Joy and a couple more superiors, Lance brings in the briefcase. However, they find there is nothing in the case, and Joy asks for an explanation. Agent Marcy Kappel (Jones) of Internal Affairs enters the room and immediately accuses Lance of stealing the M9 Assassin. She has her team sweep the room. This includes Eyes (Gillan) and Ears (Khaled). Eyes is a specialist in spectral analysis and quantum optical thermography, and Ears is a specialist in sound. Lance gets mad and gets in Ears’s face, so Ears uses his device to deactivate Lance’s weapons. Marcy demands Lance be taken into custody, but Joy swears by his top agent. Marcy has Eyes pull up footage from a surveillance camera in Tokyo two hours after his mission. Even though we know he didn’t do it, the footage shows Lance having his drones take out law enforcement agents outside of the helicopter. Lance tries to plead his case and brings up the guy with the robot hand who must have scanned his face to frame him, but no one believes him. Seeing his explanations being a waste of time, Lance goes out to find the guy who did this, but Marcy puts cuffs on him before he can leave the room. She gets cocky with him and assumes he didn’t see this coming, but he counters with a flash bang he left on his coffee mug that goes off, allowing him to escape. He runs through the facility and Marcy shouts to have the building closed to stop Lance, but he is able to just slide through the door before it seals shut. In the North Sea, Killian is flying his helicopter and presses a button on his neck. With this, his face changes into Lance’s, proving Lance was indeed framed. Sending a drone ahead of him, Killian flies directly to H.T.U.V.’s covert weapons facility. There, he infiltrates the place while masquerading as Lance. A soldier greets him upon his entrance, but Killian immediately has his drone take the guy out.

Driving to an abandoned building, the real Lance thinks about who else could possibly know who the man with the robot hand is. Remembering that Kimura had a meeting with him, he asks the computer in his car to track him down. Apparently, Kimura is in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. Before he gets there though, Lance knows he has to lay low and disappear. Realizing this, he uses his computer to locate Walter. At Walter’s house, Walter just gets home with all of his work stuff from being fired. On the wall, we see the pictures of Wendy and a newspaper headline of how she was killed in the line of duty. Along with his pet pigeon Lovey, he watches the season finale of Hearts in Seoul. Then, he takes out the fifth batch of his bio-dynamic concealment project. Once he shakes it and sees the exothermic reaction, Walter realizes this may work this time. He borrows a feather from Lovey and gives her some food as a thank you. Next, he puts the feather in a measuring cup, drops the liquid onto it, and it disappears. It works! He might get his job back! As he jumps for joy, he falls to the ground in shock once Lance shows up out of nowhere and says he needs to disappear. He asks about the tech Walter was working on and if he has it on hand. Walter confirms he does but offers a drink first. Wanting to get to the point, Lance just grabs the measuring cup in his hand and drinks it, not knowing it’s the one Walter just tested everything in. Walter starts to freak out but changes his mind and realizes this could be a major next step for science. Quickly, he gives Lance a crash course on what just happened. He just drank an “ingestible formula that uses a CRISPER-Cas9 genetic editor to re-sequence your DNA on a molecular level”.

Basically, in the next 45 seconds, Lance will transform into a pigeon.

Lance tries to leave, but the transformation begins. Because of this, the pain becomes unbearable, as his genomes are being smashed apart so he can be reassembled with pigeon DNA. After a grueling 45 seconds, the transformation is complete, and Lance is a blue pigeon. Lovey is also immediately attracted to him. Thankfully, Lance can still talk, which Walter didn’t even expect to happen. Walter then brings up the positives about this situation. Since pigeons have 360-degree vision, no one can sneak up on him. In addition, pigeons are found in every major city in the world, and no one notices them. It’s perfect for a spy. Right away, Lance demands Walter un-bird him. Though Walter agrees to, he hasn’t made the antidote yet. He blames Walter for birding him in the first place, but Walter brings up that technically, Lance birded himself. To calm him down, Walter says he called H.T.U.V. and told them Lance was there, not knowing of Lance’s situation. Thankfully, he didn’t tell them Lance is a pigeon. Storming out, Lance explains the predicament he’s in and how difficult it will be to stop the bad guy with his face in his bird form. With this, he fires Walter again. Thinking he can do this on his own, Lance goes to his car, but he can’t figure out how to get inside of it. Finally, Walter walks over and offers to come with him to show him the benefits of being a pigeon. In doing so, it could make him an even better spy, and it will allow for Walter to have his job back. Lance refuses, but the combination of hearing sirens and Walter saying he has a mobile lab in his backpack that can turn him back into a man, he relents and lets Walter come with. As Marcy and her crew storm Walter’s house to apprehend Lance and absolutely destroy the place, Lance activates auto drive and makes the location his private jet hanger.

With this, they are off to find Killian, clear Lance’s name, and turn him back into a man. Unfortunately, Marcy and her team are hot on their tail. Once she sees Lance’s car get away, she realizes that Walter is with him. However, Lance always works alone, so she knows he’s using Walter for something. She’s just not sure yet.

My Thoughts:

Imaginative, amusing, family-friendly, and powered by a great cast, Spies in Disguise is a light-hearted romp that is a welcomed final addition to the legacy left by Blue Sky Studios (Ice Age franchise, Rio franchise, The Peanuts Movie, etc.). It is a lot of fun, and Will Smith and Tom Holland really match the frenetic energy of the story, and the combination of eye-popping imagery, comedy, and awesome action involved. The only thing holding it back is its shoehorning of themes, as it sends the narrative in lackluster directions to make sense of it all.

The pushing of teamwork is an easy one to get behind. From the beginning, it’s obvious that the arrogant Lance Sterling will have to learn the value of teamwork by the end of the movie. It’s a given, as it’s almost in every animated movie, so it’s no surprise it’s used here. My problem is with the other half of this. The message that being “weird” or being your own individual self is in fact an important one to send to the many children watching, though it was already overdone to death in other Blue Sky Studios film Ferdinand two years earlier, but I digress. Now, I don’t have a problem with the idea of the message, but it just doesn’t fit this story and the events that unfold within it. It’s just a bit harder to suspend your disbelief and agree with goofy little Walter that there are ways around violence with bad guys when you’re in a secret law enforcement agency in a world of globe-trotting spies, terrorists, and supervillains. This isn’t a local police force fighting the war on drugs or something. The H.T.U.V. are facing real-world bad guys that are threats to whole ass countries. Not to sound cynical, but in the case of someone like Lance Sterling, violence is sometimes needed when you’re out in the field and crossing into territories all over the world trying to stop international disasters. It’s a bit of a slap in the face that this sheltered scientist in his teens, who can barely interact with his coworkers, is somehow proven 100% right about being a positive person and trying to find ways around attacking villains directly. Don’t get me wrong, the message can stay the same and Walter can eventually win more often than not to show Lance he doesn’t always have to fight fire with fire, but the Walter character arc stays at certain peaks and has very few valleys to face to show that he also has a lot to learn about the real-world too. Give Lance a little credit people! He’s considered to be the world’s best for a reason!

You’re telling me he doesn’t have a point when stating that sometimes, you just need a real weapon to take a bad guy out? Within the context of this story, Lance is not advocating for vigilantism. It’s just the world that this spy lives in and how he does his job, and he does it well I might add.

He’s experienced it and has had his life threatened on countless occasions. Sometimes, you need to kick some ass to stop bad people in their tracks! Walter needs to come to this understanding that there isn’t always a positive non-violent solution. It’s unfair to put all the heavy lifting of evolving on the guy who’s actually come face to face with death itself instead of the kid who hasn’t experienced jack shit! There needs to be a give and take because that is what life is all about, compromise. Why isn’t this rather important theme touched on? Even for a movie about a spy turning into a pigeon, it’s a little unrealistic to think that glitter and kittens can save the day against a guy with a bionic arm and a thirst for blood. For instance, I understand why Walter wouldn’t want to activate the weapons in Lance’s car on Marcy and the agents pursuing them because they are technically good guys, but you can’t just sit on your hands either. If those agents captured them or started to open fire, then what? They’re both fucked! Lance isn’t in the wrong here. When he sarcastically asks Walter if they should just pull over and talk it out, Walter enthusiastically asks, “Exactly! Can we?”. What world are you living in? This is the type of shit that is too annoyingly make-believe for the viewer to fully buy into because the implications of the plot are too heavy and need more realistic solutions. Obviously, no one is arguing that Spies in Disguise needs to send a message to kids that, “Killing is sometimes the answer”. I’m just saying that you’re insulting the intelligence of the children and the parents who are forced to watch this when you’re telling them that evil people deserve a chance too and shouldn’t get their asses handed to them, no matter how many lives they have threatened. The viewing audience isn’t as stupid as this screenplay thinks. Everyone knows that when you work in espionage and are going up against genuinely bad people, action and force is needed.

Saying anything to the contrary is a flat-out lie and shielding kids with absolute nonsense. You made the bed of an action-packed movie about spy antics, now you have to lie in it and acknowledge some truths about the profession and its real-world implications. It’s not me taking things too seriously either. I’m on board with almost everything else because the movie is a lot of fun, but it’s insulting to think Walter looking at the Earth through these rose-colored glasses of sunshine and rainbows is 100% right and the guy who has almost been murdered by bad guys daily is 100% wrong. That is insulting. If we’re being honest, it’s just as dangerous to make a kid think the world is a safe place and everyone should be given the benefit of the doubt because that’s just not always true. Both characters need to evolve and learn from the other. That is how you make a narrative like this work, which is why their conversation before they get to Venice is frustrating. Both Lance and Walter agree that people will die if they don’t stop Killian, but Walter is adamant in saying, “We can find a good way to stop the bad”. Lance appreciates his outlook and everything, but it becomes frustrating for us and the viewer, which is why you can’t help but agree with Lance as he tells him this idea is a fantasy. Though it’s a bit aggressive, his comments ring true as he tells him, “When the bad guys hit you, you hit ’em back. You hit ’em so hard, they don’t get back up”. Obviously, his “fight fire with fire” line allows for the lay-up response of “When we fight fire with fire, we all get burned”, but the point still stands. Walter’s hippie-like outlook of there being no good guys or bad guys, “just people” is just wrong. If he can’t tell who the bad guy is in this particular situation, maybe it was right he got fired. We want to believe in what Walter is saying because people are worth saving, but at some point, this kid has to face the facts and acknowledge that Lance has a point.

“Evil doesn’t care that you’re nice”.

This should’ve been the turning point for Walter to take things seriously, but they throw this realism out the window because they play the sympathy card right after this to act like he gets a pass for being an idiot. It’s just not fair. The audience is aware of the passing of his mother in the line of duty, but why should this supersede Lance’s point that he watches “good people be taken every day”? It’s the same thing, but since we don’t know the specifics of his backstory, as he has clearly experienced a lot of pain and death in his own personal and professional life and probably more so, it’s framed in a way that Walter’s story is somehow more traumatic. What a disrespectful and grossly irresponsible thing to even suggest!

Will Smith is a gem as cool-guy spy Lance Sterling. Even in animated form, his charisma, charm, and humor show through. He has an all-around comic performance, and he plays off of Tom Holland’s naivety and youthful energy well. If they got rid of the pigeon part of the plot, they could have had these two team-up in a live-action film in a similar premise, and it’s possible the movie would be even better. There’s something about the younger Holland learning from veteran movie stars on film like Robert Downey Jr. (Spider-Man: Homecoming) and Mark Wahlberg (Uncharted) that can make any movie somewhat entertaining. In Spies in Disguise, he emulates these previous performances but makes it slightly nerdier to fit the role. No one else would call himself “Hydrogen Bond” as a joke unless they’re a socially inept MIT graduate like Walter. It’s done well, and the animation of the Walter character really matches his likable innocence and wackiness. They don’t do too many emotional scenes, but when they allude to some of it regarding the death of Walter’s mother, it’s felt fairly well. The climax is a big example of this, as he really solidifies what it means to be a hero with a pretty ballsy sacrifice moment that could win anyone over (“One day, you’re going to keep the world safe”). From the start, we know Walter is a good kid that just wants to connect with others, but his outcast behavior won’t let it happen. In reality, everyone feels misunderstood and is scared to share their interests because they don’t want to be looked down on or seen as a weirdo, so Walter finding a real friend in Lance and being accepted for how creative and intelligent he actually is by the end is a heartwarming full circle moment. It’s a movie for those kids still trying to find their place, despite hobbies or interests that don’t fit the norm, and that will always be endearing about the movie. Holland does exactly what is asked of him to convey the journey the character takes and is funny while doing so, though it’s not too difficult of a performance as the similarities to his portrayal of Peter Parker are painfully clear-cut.

Even so, Will Smith does the brunt of the comedy and gets a lot of laughs once he goes into pigeon mode. You can’t help but at least chuckle anytime he’s about to lose it on Walter for some smart comment (“Ooooo, I’m a hurt this boy”). Smith trying to stop himself from flipping out is consistently funny. It’s something he famously leans on in the Bad Boys franchise when dealing with Martin Lawrence, and it never gets old. Considering he’s stuck as a blue pigeon (who we later learn has female DNA because Lovey’s feather was used in the experiment), he has plenty of reason to lose his fucking mind on this kid, making that daydream of him hitting the ejector seat on Walter during the private plane scene that much funnier. Because of how well he performs in the role, my biggest question coming out of this film is how is it that Will Smith never have a chance to play a super smooth, James Bond-type of spy because he absolutely nails this fucking thing! How was there never a screenplay with Smith as a cool agent going up against an over-the-top villain in a series of spy adventures not a thing? This has franchise potential written all over it, especially in Smith’s prime in the 2000s! In a live-action franchise, Smith could have EASILY been that guy. How the hell did this never happen?!

Okay, regarding Smith’s role in Spies in Disguise, I want you to hear me out for a second because this is a fairly radical idea that would completely change the focus of the movie. What if we just got rid of the animal aspect of the plot? What if there was no goofy pigeon serum? Stay with me. Let’s keep it as a computer-animated action-comedy film, but instead, it’s all about “The world’s most awesome spy” Lance Sterling. Anytime the story shifted back to Walter or the pigeon crew, it was amusing but nothing that you’d consider to be must-see entertainment compared to the overabundance of animated movies filling the Hollywood landscape. What if they pivoted and just turned this into an animated action-comedy where Lance Sterling travels the world fighting bad guys, with Walter being his inside-man gadget friend. Next, you add more depth to the Terminator-like Killian role and why this gets personal between them and keep Rashida Jones’s role as relentless IA agent Marcy. However, this time we insert a burgeoning romantic rivalry into the plot, as she fights her feelings to try and arrest Lance while the two slowly fall in love during this globe-trotting pursuit. After watching the electrifying introductory sequence of Sterling in Japan, I can’t help but think that this was a better way to go. You still could have conveyed certain messages and themes that were touched upon, but going in this direction gives it more of a blockbuster appeal and arguable franchise potential. Though you’re limiting your audience to grade school and early teen boys, they are the ones who get their parents to buy the action figures. Had the ultra-cool action star Lance Sterling take more precedence over the plot and stayed in his human form, with the main idea of him turning into a bird being dropped entirely and this evolving into more of a Will Smith vehicle, I genuinely think they could’ve turned Spies in Disguise into something much bigger.

I’m talking sequels, a cartoon series, action figures, video games, and whatever else. It could have been something like the highly underrated Buzz Lightyear of Star Command spinoff. That is how good Will Smith is here. All the other fluff to make the movie mean something more really wasn’t needed at all. If anything, it just undermined what could have been. Look no further than the back-and-forth between Killian and Lance in Killian’s lair. The villain has a backstory worth telling, but he only reveals bits and pieces and implies a lot of devastation involved because of Lance’s exploits like in Kyrgyzstan and how a bomb may have caused his cyborg-like face to be possible, as well as him watching “every one of my people die as your agency’s weapons rained down upon us”. Their dialogue isn’t anything special per say, but it’s exciting for a family-friendly spy adventure much like the Buzz Lightyear spinoff, with Killian vowing to take everything from Lance by blowing up the vessel Walter was in, and Lance not backing down by reminding Killian that him and his group were “a lot of bad dudes about to hurt a lot of innocent people”, which is why what happened to Killian went down. In an expanded Lance Sterling-centric universe, this could have led to a multimedia franchise that was fun as hell! By the way, my favorite exchange of the movie was right as Lance infiltrated Killian’s lair before he’s caught, destroying a drone and mentioning how one drone won’t do him any good. Killian asks if he really thought he was going to use just a single drone, and Lance’s response had me cackling with, “I mean I did until you asked that question that way. Casts a little doubt”. This is the type of comedic gold that could have been consistently present had this been focused entirely on Lance the spy. There’s that and hilarious quip as he faced off against the yakuza with, “I don’t think that subtitle was in my favor”.

General question, why was Killian’s place left unattended, allowing for Walter to save Lance from his restraints? Considering Killian had thousands of drones all over his massive lair, surely, he would have some of them stay to keep an eye on “the world’s most awesome spy”, right? It seems idiotic not to. Also, what is Marcy’s problem anyway? She has this vendetta against Lance that is never explained. You can be determined as an employee, but even when there is evidence staring straight at her face, she still looks at every angle to try and implicate him on something. Why? Why wouldn’t they give us one character motivation to explain why she’s so adamant on Lance’s guilt? Had she been an ex-girlfriend who can’t stand him or someone who does like Lance but is trying desperately to push those feelings aside, it would have actually given her a compelling arc instead of the one-dimensional character she ended up being. If anything, they could have made her into a more discernible antagonist because she was showing all the right signs for it. Why else would she stoop as low as bringing up Walter’s deceased mother to try and win him over to her side completely unprompted (“You’re trying to save the world just like your mother did. I know she sacrificed her life to save people”)?

That was kind of fucked up.

Strangely enough, I do have to give a special shoutout to DJ Khaled. He didn’t have many lines in the film, but they put him in the best possible situations to succeed to make his role more memorable than it had any business in being. His delivery of “Sounds a little Scooby Doo bro” when Lance tries to argue that Killian scanned his face to use his identity had me dying. Compared to the rest of the supporting cast, he got all the best lines. Between this and him getting his ass kicked in the last two Bad Boys movies, he’s got some potential as an actor.

Despite what I said earlier, I did enjoy the chaotic Wolfman-like transformation that Lance goes through to become a pigeon. As his hands get small, his eyes bug out, and the bumps on his arm grow before he screams in pain, it does a great job at making you feel uncomfortable and feeling for Lance in the moment. At the same time, they did a great job at explaining the benefits and abilities of a pigeon. Personally, I never thought I’d say that because I was on the side of thinking they are utterly useless as animals. Right when he mentioned they have 360-degree vision, my ears started to perk up thinking, “Okay, I didn’t know that”. Then, there’s stuff like cloaca, which I wished I didn’t know about, though Smith still made it funny enough to where it made the stupid and disgusting bits comical enough to be worth it. A good example of this is when they get to the resort in Mexico to find Kimura, and he has this uncontrollable urge to eat garbage off the ground and gets disgusted at himself as he does it. As crazy as it sounds, it works in context. Combining this with his natural charisma that’s even seen in bird form, allowing Lance to lead his own flock even when he doesn’t want to, actually overcomes what could be taken as childish humor. At times, it felt like the screenwriter really loves this animal and is trying to prove its worth to the rest of the world. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a weird thing, but if I call him weird, that just disrespects the whole point of this movie, so we’re not doing that. However, Walter saying that his dream has always been to come to Venice to feed the pigeons is insanely stupid.

Nevertheless, he makes up for it with Lance threatening to torture Kimura by making him listen to a Nickelback album and Walter freaking out like Lance has a gun to the guy’s head.

Spies in Disguise is genuinely funny for all ages. The entire sequence leading up to the interrogation of Kimura like figuring out what name he’s under at the resort (“Not Kimura”) to moments like pigeon Lance refusing Walter’s help but turning and realizing he needs his help using the elevator, to Kimura thinking pigeon Lance is a remote operated gadget controlled by him (which is actually plausible), and Marcy almost puking while having to move the dry-heaving blob that Kimura is temporarily because of Walter’s multi-pen was all great stuff. Then, there was Lance accidentally popping out an egg after Walter’s hug, Walter crashing the first bike he commandeers so he grabs another one, Lovey’s constant flirting with Lance and him having to tell her stop all the time, Lance having to angrily pigeon walk when he hears how long the antidote is going to take, and his response to Walter’s creation of the inflatable hug that we were probably all thinking with, “This is a vile waste of taxpayer dollars”.

On a side note, I loved the look of the animation when Kimura’s body turned into the blob-like figure. The animation and art of today in these movies continues to impress with each mainstream release. The most impressive shot was the seconds-long wide shot of Walter and Lance in the submarine vessel in in the North Sea at the Covert Weapons facility. Honest to God, it looked real. I couldn’t believe it. The way the waves moved around them and how it was framed, it looked like a live-action scene inside of the movie. Going along with that, the cool shot of the dark blue room of Killian’s lair with the static TVs everywhere was awesome. For animated spy movie, the action sequences were all top notch as well. The highway chase ending in the oil slick and the fire was crazy, the cartoon physics involved in the chase around the resort between Marcy’s team and Walter and Lance (the “It Takes Two” sequence) was loads of fun, and the flying chase sequence in Venice that almost leads to Killian killing Walter really turned up the intensity. Though the exploding kaleidoscope of chaos in the climax of the movie to stop Killian is fitting of what they were building towards, as it was a preeminent example of “Let’s get weird”, it was a messy, overdone, clusterfuck. If anything, it only strengthens my argument of how this should’ve been a less convoluted, regular spy action-comedy centered on the classic “good guy vs. bad guy” formula. After so many highlights throughout the movie, the video game-like finale was just a tad too much.

For all intents and purposes, the amusing Spies in Disguise will entertain the whole family with thrills and laughs in all the right places. Unfortunately, the biggest selling point of the movie being that the main character turns into a pigeon doesn’t exactly live up to its potential. It’s legitimately funny, beautifully animated, has a great cast, and is a decent watch, but it never reaches the next level and finds itself in an underwhelming position by the time we roll around to the climax.