Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		5.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Spies in Disguise 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 13, 2020

The animators at Blue Sky came up with an unexpected “superstar” in the form of Scrat, the acorn hoarding kinda sorta squirrel like creature in the Ice Age: 5 Movie Collection. Scrat became so popular after the first Ice Age, in fact, that he (it?) became Blue Sky’s mascot, featured prominently in both a series of appealing shorts as well as the film’s production masthead. Blue Sky may have another extremely odd star waiting in the wings, with an emphasis on wings, since this bizarre creature, known as Crazy Eyes in Spies in Disguise, may be a pigeon by definition, but is in many ways simply a flying Scrat. Spies in Disguise actually has a whole flock of pigeons marauding through its story, since the central conceit of this unabashedly silly romp is that a superspy named Lance Sterling (voiced by Will Smith) is turned into a pigeon courtesy of a “Q wannabe” named Walter Beckett (Tom Holland), a kind of hapless shlub who has toiled in the weapons department of the spy agency where Lance is the big man on or off campus. Walter, however, has a pacifist side, and so he keeps inventing weapons that tend to get the job done without creating untold carnage, something that actually irritates the heck out of Lance, who wants to blow the bad guys up, no questions asked. Spies in Disguise doesn’t have a lot of narrative momentum, opting for some contrived plot mechanics that put Lance (in bird form) and Walter on the run from an agency cop named Marcy Kappel (Rashida Jones), who is under the mistaken assumption that Lance has stolen a super secret drone technology that kind of feeds off the atmosphere and so is unstoppable if it’s programmed to go after something and destroy it. Of course, Lance has already figured out that an arch villain named Killian (Ben Mendelsohn) not only has the drone, but has scanned Lance’s face and is able to morph himself into Lance’s form, a disguise that allows Killian to infiltrate various top secret locations and, well, blow things up without asking any questions, in a behavior which is kind of ironically exactly like the real Lance.

Walter is actually initially introduced as a kid working on a series of inventions that he wants his police woman mother to utilize in order to keep her safe. That little plot point may plant a seed in some more prescient viewers who may wonder how long it is before Walter’s Mom is going to meet some horrible fate on her job. It’s perhaps a bit surprising, then, when instead of detailing just such a tragedy, the film segues forward a decade and a half or so to find Walter as an adult working in the gadgets division of the spy agency (which is not to say that any prescient feeling is misplaced in the grand scheme of things). And in fact, once the film does segue it appears for a while at least that Walter is most definitely “only” a supporting character to Lance.

That changes soon enough, but only after a heated interchange between Lance and Walter where Lance ends up firing Walter, a running gag throughout the film. But ultimately Lance is of course in need of Walter’s new “stealth” technology after Lance is accused of stealing the drone, only Walter doesn’t exactly let Lance know that the technology is one that will transform him into a pigeon. Now that is certainly one of those so- called “high concepts” that may lead some jaded analysts to infer that the “high” part may have been with regard to controlled substances on the part of the writing team, but joking aside, this was evidently based on a short called Pigeon Impossible , featuring the same basic setup (meaning maybe those writers were “altered”), which is unfortunately not included in the supplements on this release.

With a premise that patently goofy, it’s really hard to give a penetrating, sober analysis of a film that just kind of careens along on its own manic energy. There is a lot of noise and fury here signifying relatively little, but I have to say Spies in Disguise made me laugh fairly heartily on several occasions (one of which admittedly might be limited to me, since it involved a series of jokes revolving around the name “Jeff”). You’ve seen the “emotional arc” (if it can even be called that) of this film in countless other offerings, both animated and live action, where a mismatched pair find that they’re better together as a team than on their own, but the whole gonzo central section of this film where Lance is a pigeon struck me as kind of deliriously funny a lot of the time. His adoptive "flock", which includes that aforementioned star in waiting Crazy Eyes, is mined for quite a bit of visual humor throughout in much the same vein that groups of more bizarre supporting characters have been in other Blue Sky enterprises.

The animators have done a nice job with character design and an overall aesthetic that is really colorful and eye popping a lot of the time. Voice work is also very engaging, with good supporting turns by Reba McIntire as Lance’s (and by extension Walter’s) superior at the spy agency and a few nice moments with Rachel Brosnahan as Walter’s mother.

Note: My colleague Brian Orndorf was considerably less taken with this film than I was. You can read Brian's thoughts here.

Spies in Disguise 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Note: Screenshots are sourced from the 1080p Blu-ray.

Spies in Disguise is presented in 4K UHD courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with a 2160p transfer in 2.38:1. The IMDb doesn't specify at what resolution the DI was finished, but one way or the other, this is another great looking 4K presentation from Fox. Both fine detail and palette highlights are noticeably improved in this presentation. Fine detail enjoys an uptick on all sorts of admittedly "minor" items like the lines in the numbers of the digital clock seen in the film's very opening scene, or a bit later on the fine cross woven fabric of Walter's childhood pajamas. Even elements like the tiny, almost imperceptible, freckles on young Walter and his mother are much better defined in this presentation. Later, once Lance has undergone his startling transformation, the rendering of the bird feathers looks generally more precise in 4K, especially when those feathers are literally ruffled. But some of the nicest differences in this version come courtesy of palette saturation and highlights courtesy of HDR. This is an amazingly colorful production to begin with, and I was recurrently struck by the vividness of reds, blues and purples in particular, something that's evident as early as the credits sequence (which prominently features those tones), but which returns over and over again, including the blues of the first scene really introducing Lance, or later during the big climax, where first deep reds, but later blues and purples, saturate the screen. The goofy "rainbow effect" that's part of the big final smackdown looks amazingly bright and eye popping in this version.

As I mentioned in our Spies in Disguise Blu-ray review, this is another film that had at least some theatrical exhibitions in 3D, but which is only being granted "flat" releases in 1080p and 2160p. That said, I'd say perceived dimensionality is improved here, especially in scenes that in the 3D version would have obviously exploited more "in your face" effects.

Spies in Disguise 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

I gave top marks to the 1080p Blu-ray's audio presentation in DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 track, but this is another instance where if I could turn my score "up to 11" I gladly would, since the 4K UHD disc's Dolby Atmos presentation takes an already impressive tracks and puts it over the top (literally and figuratively). There's all sorts of new vertical information in this version, including "little" moments like the cooing of the "flying rats" (i.e., pigeons) Lance spots overhead in his introductory sequence, but obviously much more prominently in the whole subplot featuring a drone, which soon enough turns into an army of drones, in what is one of the more consistent uses of Atmos channels I've personally experienced. As with the "basic" 7.1 track, surround activity is very smartly managed throughout the track, obviously bursting into overkill in some of the big action sequences, but providing consistent immersion even in some relatively quieter scenes. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout.

Spies in Disguise 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The 4K UHD disc does not contain any supplements, and so the score above reflects that fact. For a list of bonus features found on the 1080p Blu-ray disc which is also included with this release, please refer to our Spies in Disguise Blu-ray review.

Spies in Disguise 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you simply surrender to this film's very peculiar sense of lunacy, it may provide you as many laughs as it did me. In revisiting this a second time kind of vicariously vis a vis taking screenshots for this review, I actually once again laughed a couple of times simply thinking about the frankly stupid premise this film exploits. That said, I'm one of those guys who likes stupid comedy, so of course individual mileage may vary. Technical merits are excellent, and if you're fan of dunderheaded humor like I am, Spies in Disguise comes Recommended.