Spies In Disguise is an animated family adventure film directed by Nick Bruno and Troy Quane. The plot sees super spy Lance (Will Smith), be accused of going rouge, in the process of clearing his name he is turned into a pigeon by child genius Walter (Tom Holland), and the two team up to save the world.
Before I get into this review I just want to talk about the character models. There is something seriously wrong with the proportions of these characters, to a point where Lance looks related to the Slender Man and Jack Skellington. I am of course talking about the legs of these characters; they are way too long for their bodies and other proportions it is distracting. The opening scene where we see Lance do spy stuff and beat up the Yakuza is the best example of how bad the character design looks; the legs are off.
The premise is fairly cliched and nothing you haven’t seen from a kid’s movie before, the theme is embracing your weirdness and realising that others who aren’t the same as you are okay too. I found this film to be quite enjoyable for the most part it had me laughing a few times, it hit the right emotional notes and the film knew just how to use Will Smith’s signature type of charisma. This film would be nothing without Smith.
I enjoyed the weirdness of this film and the pigeon stuff and would like to see more films embracing strange premises like this in the future.
Overall, Smith and his charisma made this film. Ben Mendelsohn is also strong as the film’s villain, who has many great moments to shine. My only complaint would be about the off-putting character design and the predicatable plot, but neither of these are deal breakers.
Pros.
Smith
Mendelsohn
All the pigeon stuff
Cons.
The legs
The predicatable plot
4/5
Reviewed by Luke
Another Millennial Reviewer 