Spies in Disguise was mostly good actually: a sincere review by a tired film major
I was visiting home for the holidays and my little sister wanted to see the movie, and I like to check up every once in a while on what’s being presented in new kids’ films, so I offered to take her. I was expecting mediocre animation and a bizarre cartoonish plot padded with a few adult jokes, and was pleasantly surprised.
The film’s key message is the condemnation of the overuse of excessive/lethal force by law enforcement.
The film also condemns the US military/government’s excessive collateral damage and unnecessary casualties, particularly in foreign countries.
Additionally, the film discourages compartmentalization and encourages working together instead of “flying solo” to gain all the glory for oneself. It also suggests that the idea of a hero going it alone to keep their teammates from being hurt is wrong, and that people should have their own agency to decide that for themselves. This reminded me of when I took my sister to see the Lego Batman movie, or Steven Universe.
Walter’s traditionally feminine interests (glitter, unicorns, cooking, etc) are presented as non-gendered. His feminine mannerisms aren’t made the butt of any joke, and they’re not even pointed out, they’re just part of his character. While the other characters do treat him as an outsider, it’s because they find his pacifist values impractical for the job, not because of any perceived failure to perform masculinity.
Normalizing platonic tenderness between male characters- there’s several times where Walter initiates a hug, or Lance communicates his emotions. There’s even a moment where Walter casually climbs into Lance’s lap and isn’t rebuffed.
When Lance is angry and realizes that he’s scaring Walter, he immediately changes his behavior, apologizes, and says “I shouldn’t raise my voice, i’m just really stressed right now.” It reminded me a lot of a moment from Spiderman: Far From Home, where Peter yells at Happy and then says “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t shout.” I think that’s an important thing to teach to the kids that are seeing these movies, that you can express stress without escalating to anger, and that yelling or becoming violent is inappropriate.
Lance, a black male lead, is allowed to cry in a genuinely tragic moment rather than for a joke.
Walter has an emotional support animal
Walter’s main influence is his mother, a police officer who is killed on the job. It’s too rare to find a male character who idolizes his mother, or is predominantly driven by teachings from her. It’s far more common to find sons or daughters who are attached in this way to their fathers. Walter’s mother encourages his unique interests, tells him to embrace his true self regardless of what people say, and instills in him compassion and the desire to protect others. Additionally, her death leads him to believe in pacifism instead of pursuing revenge.
“When you fight fire with fire, everyone gets burned.” A good guy with a gun is not the answer to a bad guy with a gun.
Diverse, distinct, and non-sexualized female characters, all wearing practical uniforms just like their male counterparts.
The villain had an understandable motive but he wasn’t given a tragic backstory to humanize him. The writing doesn’t allow you to side with him, he’s not a self-insert for any shitty person that feels they’ve been wronged by society.
Walter has a lot of traits that could easily be read as queer or neurodivergent, traits that are never “corrected” or “grown out of.” In fact, by the end of the film, they’re celebrated. Having lead characters with traits like these in children’s media can help kids to accept these in their peers, or in themselves.
There were a lot of cool secondary details in the character design (tattoos, scars, etc) that made them feel like real people with histories.
It was legitimately funny. I was laughing out load, and had an honestly great time. I was worried I’d be bored out of my mind, but I was genuinely entertained.
Lance turning into a pigeon continues that weird pattern of POC animated characters spending the majority of their films as an animal or non-human creature (see also: Princess and the Frog, Soul, Emperor’s New Groove, Brother Bear) Lance could have accomplished his character arc without this, the story would have functioned just as well without the pigeon-shapeshifting, or with Walter and Lance’s races being swapped so a black lead remained human for the entire film.
Another bad trope continued by this film- disfigured and disabled villains. The villain of this movie has a prosthetic arm and severe burns on his face.
There’s a scene in which Lance, in his pigeon body, lays an egg. Walter surmises that this is because the DNA used to create the pigeon-serum came from his female pet pigeon, Lovey. He then says “You know what this means, you’re a girl!” Being a trans man, I found this exchange uncomfortable, because the dialogue suggests that biology=gender regardless of identity, and the scene was completely inconsequential to any other part of the plot, thus unnecessary.
There’s a lot of jokes about anal penetration in this movie??? Like 5???Why???
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