SPIES IN DISGUISE (2020) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

spies in disguise (2020) movie

Genre              |   Animated Action

Classification   |   PG

Running time   |   102 minutes

Released         |   1 January 2020

cast

Will Smith ... Lance Sterling (voice)
Tom Holland ... Walter Beckett (voice)
Karen Gillan ... Eyes (voice)
Rachel Brosnahan ... Wendy Beckett (voice)
Rashida Jones ... Marcy Kappel (voice)
Ben Mendelsohn ... Killian (voice)

director

​Nick Bruno
Troy Quane

writer

​Brad Copeland ... (screenplay by)
Lloyd Taylor ... (screenplay by)

cinematographer

music

Theodore Shapiro ... (music by)

film editor

​William Battaglia ... first assistant editor

---

box office result

Worldwide               $200 million

Australia                 $? million

North America        $? million

---

movie minutiae

The fifth Blue Sky Studios film not have its music composed by John Powell, after ICE AGE (2002) (which was scored by David Newman), EPIC (2013) (which was scored by Danny Elfman), THE PEANUTS MOVIE (2015) (which was scored by Christophe Beck), and ICE AGE: COLLISION COURSE (2016) (which was scored by a different John, being John Debney). In this case, Theodore Shapiro will be the composer for this movie.

Tom Holland and Karen Gillan previously co-starred in AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR (2018) and AVENGERS: ENDGAME (2019).

​This is the first animated film from 20th Century Fox to be released after the Disney purchase.

---

SPIES IN DISGUISE (2020) MOVIE IMAGES

Images

Posters

Images

Posters

SPIES IN DISGUISE (2020) STORY SYNOPSIS

​Super spy Lance Sterling (Will Smith) and scientist Walter Beckett (Tom Holland) are almost exact opposites. Lance is smooth, suave and debonair. Walter is... not. But what Walter lacks in social skills he makes up for in smarts and invention, creating the awesome gadgets Lance uses on his epic missions. But when events take an unexpected turn, Walter and Lance suddenly have to rely on each other in a whole new way. And if this odd couple can’t learn to work as a team, the whole world is in peril.

SPIES IN DISGUISE (2020) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 31 December 2019

Pop ​Movee Rating

SPIES IN DISGUISE is a diverting animated Spy-Fi adventure that sees incumbent Marvel/Sony Spider-Man Tom Holland team up with Will Smith in an effort to prevent Ben Mendelsohn’s super bad guy from unleashing weapons of mass destruction upon an unsuspecting world!

Co-directed by Nick Bruno and Troy Quane, SPIES IN DISGUISE continues a solid run of films from Blue Sky Studios, the animation arm of 20th Century Fox Studios; the first to be released since Disney took charge of the Fox film assets. Despite 20th Century Fox being acquired by the Walt Disney Company, SPIES doesn’t feel as though there has been any heavy-handed effort to bring the Blue Sky team into line with the Disney animation look or feel. SPIES maintains the design aesthetic Blue Sky has created with the ICE AGE and RIO series of films. 

It’s not ground-breaking animation, but it is a nice mix of the Blue Sky’s own design language and inspiration from other live-action and animated Spy-Fi movies.

Bruno and Quane are Blue Sky veterans, bringing over a decade of in-house experience to the project, so it’s no surprise they would continue the studio’s design heritage. Perhaps the most substantial parallel to be made between SPIES and a Disney film is the sharp angular look of Will Smith’s secret agent Lance Sterling (when he’s in human form). Sterling has a passing resemblance to a number of characters from THE INCREDIBLES franchise, but that look was itself derived from the early Bond films, so neither group of filmmakers could be accused of lacking an appreciation of the best source material from which to get their inspiration!

SPIES is based upon a 2009 six-minute short titles PIGEON: IMPOSSIBLE by visual effects artist Lucas Martell. The short shows the predicament a first-time secret agent faces when a pigeon gets stuck inside a nuclear-enhanced briefcase. 

Martell isn’t involved in SPIES, buut Bruno and Quane have developed the PIGEON premise  as far as could be reasonably expected, enlisting writers Brad Copeland and Lloyd Taylor to flesh out the potential of a pigeon-centric Spy-Fi story!

The plot sees Smith’s Sterling set-up by Mendelsohn’s Killian at the very beginning of the film while on assignment in Japan. Sterling is so annoyed by the failure of a gadget, created by Holland’s Walter Beckett, he fails to see he’s being lured into a trap by Killian. Although things haven’t gone according to plan, Sterling manages to secure an attack drone he’s gone to recover, or so he thinks…

Upon his return to secret agent organisation H.T.U.V. (Honour, Trust, Unity & Valour) Headquarters, Sterling discovers the case he’s acquired in his battle against Killian is empty. He is confronted by Special Agent Marcy Kappel, voiced by Rashida Jones, who accuses Sterling of being a traitor; appropriating the drone weapon for his own evil purposes. 

Sterling begins to realise the gravity of his situation...

Seeing video footage of “himself” (a holographically-altered Killian) using the drone to orchestrate an attack, Sterling knows he’s in trouble and makes a dash for freedom.

With nowhere else to turn, he seeks out Walter and asks for his help.

Unfortunately for Sterling, Walter’s effort to help see him transformed into a pigeon, but does have the advantage of keeping him “off the grid” from the pursuing Kappel.

If SPIES IN DISGUISE were a live-action film, it would be at the point of Sterling’s transformation that the audience would find it difficult to maintain their suspension of disbelief. As an animated feature, there’s always a greater preparedness to go with the flow and accept this type of silliness.

Being open to the idea of Will Smith being transformed into a secret agent pigeon is critical to enjoying the remainder of the film. Viewers who can’t accept it, will find the second half of SPIES an interminable bore. 

Bruno and Quane know their audience well enough to keep the action sequences short, sharp and fast. From the time Sterling is transformed, the film has key sequences set in both Mexico and Venice before bringing the hero and his nemesis together in a showdown at Killian’s remote island lair.

In addition to a solid story and maintaining the Blue Sky aesthetic, SPIES IN DISGUISE features a great soundtrack, courtesy of Musician, DJ and music producer Mark Ronson. Ronson, who has worked with the likes of Lady Gaga, Adele and Queens of the Stone Age. His “Uptown Funk” collaboration with Bruno Mars in 2015 brought him mainstream chart success and he was one of four co-writers of the Academy Award winning song “Shallow” from A STAR IS BORN (2018).

SPIES IN DISGUISE probably won’t live long in the memory of viewers, but, for this holiday season, it’s an entertaining option for those who’ve already caught up with STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER (2019) and JUMANJI: THE NEXT LEVEL (2019).

SPIES IN DISGUISE MOVIE (2020) USEFUL LINKS

Spies in Disguise - Wikipedia​
Spies in Disguise (2019) - IMDb
​Spies in Disguise (2019) - Rotten Tomatoes​

digital updates delivered

facebook

instagram