Spies in Disguise: 2019’s Best Animated Film
For the first time in 2019, an animated film goes beyond the word “good” in its last month of releases. Spies in Disguise is an insanely creative and mature animated film about agent Lance Sterling (Will Smith) tracking down “Robot-Hand” (Ben Mendelsohn) as he plans to kill every agent with a drone strike and frames Sterling from doing it. Sterling needs to “disappear” in order to track him, and scientist Walter Becket (Tom Holland) accidentally transforms him into a pigeon. What ensues is terrific comedy from frame 1 to the last.
The best thing about Spies in Disguise, and one that has been lacking for oh-so-long at Disney is its creativity. The animation oozes creativity from its first terrificially staged action sequence with a wide color palette and fantastic use of 3D that makes its audience pulled in the world of the movie. The action sequences are, sometimes, a little violent for a kids’ film, but I appreciated how ballsy Spies in Disguise’s action sequences were. When Walter gets hit in the head by Killian’s (RH) robot-hand, you feel that punch and the digital camerawork tries to emulate a serious action film, remeniscent of a Paul Greengrass one. Each action sequence is vibrantly kinetic and hilariously slapstick, a fantastic blend of the other that plays around so well when they’re meshed together. The film is also constantly funny with its pigeon jokes — and Will Smith is absolutely hilarious as Pigeon Lance Sterling. There are many great slapstick moments with the pigeon, but also terrific visual keys, like the “truth serum” or when Sterling discovers garbage whose pigeon smell makes it good. I and the rest of the audience were laughing quite hard. I haven’t laughed this hard at an animated film in 2019 minus the 50-somewhat second scene involving Ducky & Bunny figuring out how they were going to get the key in Toy Story 4.
The chemistry between Will Smith and Tom Holland makes the movie stand out more. While the story is quite predictable and you can follow it beat-for-beat, Spies in Disguise is beautifully elevated with Tom Holland and Will Smith going at one another. They don’t like each other, especially due to the fact that Holland turned Smith into a bird which makes for even greater verbal and physical comedy. The car chase outside Walter’s house has a great use of comedic (and real) music, slapstick and visual kineticism to perfectly blend action and comedy like a match made in heaven. And Spies in Disguise is exactly that — a match made in heaven. With terrific animation, Blue Sky’s most beautifully animated film since The Peanuts Movie, a wonderful voice cast all giving excellent work with an antagonist wanting more than “world domination” and “revenge” that actually has a motivation and an arc from beginning to end, some fantastic physical & visual comedy (the use of glitter in this is insane), Spies in Disguise becomes the best animated film of 2019. Yes, the story is quite uninspired, but it still is one hell of a movie and Disney’s most original and creative film of 2019. Boom.
✯✯✯✯½
