Spies in Disguise 2019
I had a free Redbox rental and wanted something light. I thought about Jumanji: The Next Level but reviews on the Redbox site were kind of weak, so I opted for Spies in Disguise which had better audience ratings maybe but almost exactly the same Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic score. This is a spoof of movies like James Bond or Mission: Impossible, which has certainly been done before. Animation lets some pretty crazy stuff happen and eventually the cool spy (Will Smith) is turned into a pigeon. Then there is a geeky character (Tom Holland) who believes in less deadly conflict and has a bunch of silly gadgets and weapons. Unfortunately the non-lethal gadgets are mostly just silly and it is hard to imagine a glitter bomb is really going to do much to stop someone with a gun, but that is what we are asked to believe. Meanwhile, the idea of a spy turned into a pigeon could be a perfect disguise since pigeons are everywhere and always ignored, but they don’t use that very effectively. There are a few good action scenes and enough funny stuff to keep the movie entertaining, but the setup has a lot of weaknesses and the writing isn’t as sharp as it needs to be. Most of the jokes come from Smith’s frustration at being a bird plus the fluffy gadgets produced by a partner he doesn’t want. Plus a bunch of general slapstick that is funny if you’re in the right mood. The extras barely scratch the surface and seem to be more for kids, trying to use the spy theme to get us to care about character animators and effects artists.
Written: 11 Apr 2020