I was actually interested in seeing this movie after watching its trailers many times earlier, but the premier date was exactly on Christmas day while I was away with my wife on our own holiday. We only got the chance to see it yesterday and fortunately there were few theaters still showing the movie, with one of them not far from our home. Otherwise it would be too troublesome and we might opt to skip this and wait till it play on cable TV. Anyway I'll just go straight to the movie now.
Brief Story Line
Lance Sterling (Will Smith - Gemini Man, Suicide Squad etc) was a very intelligent spy and always got the job done by himself and worked at the HTUV agency. Just like any other spies, there was a team of scientists who provided equipment/gadgets during their mission. Walter Beckett (Tom Holland - Spider-man: Homecoming, The Current War etc) was one of those scientists who dislike using violence and always try to create non lethal gadgets and almost made Lance failed in one of his missions.
Due to unexpected mishap, Lance was transformed into a pigeon and he had no choice but to cooperate with Walter to capture a ruthless terrorist Killian (Ben Mendelsohn - Ready Player One, Captain Marvel etc). Things got complicated when HTUV agents led by Marcy (Rashida Jones - The Grinch animated version etc) were also involved in this case.
So what would happen to Lance and Walter? Find them all in this fun action comedy animated movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Well that was quite fun. After 2 weeks of not seeing any movies in the cinemas, I thought it would be fun to do so with a comedy movie. And in term of that, it was quite successful in making my wife and I laughed several times. There were some scenes which managed to make me grinned and once or twice burst with laughter. However, one thing that I noticed were those funny moments were shown quite a lot during the trailer. Which meant that the movie's trailer spoiled a lot of those scenes and it no longer became a surprise for us.
And talking about surprises, the only thing that could do so was the scene involving agent Marcy when she first showed up, which to me was a well done job as it changed the way I looked at the whole movie's plot, but sadly the rest were very predictable. There were literally nothing that could surprise us any more, even the ending. Oh there was no mid end credit scene but there was one very very brief post end credit scene just for fun.
The animation of this movie was pretty standard. It was not the kind where all the characters were drawn masterfully like in Disney/Pixar's movies. Although there were a bit of facial similarities of Lance Sterling with Will Smith as the voice actor. The movie was produced by Blue Sky (subsidiary of 20th Century Fox) who had brought us other animated movies like Ice Age series, Rio series and Ferdinand. But ever since late 2019 when Disney bought Fox, it would be intriguing to see the direction this division is heading in the future.
From comedy side, I thought this movie was good enough and there were few action sequence which was OK. The buddy chemistry between Will Smith and Tom Holland to me was quite good and entertaining enough. I myself had fun in watching these two and the movie was hilarious especially during the time Lance became pigeon (oh the other birds also added some fun). However my wife felt the movie was lacking a bit of spark and unmemorable enough. My guess is it was because it did not have touching moments which usually would make her emotional in this kind of films.
Aside from the two main characters, there were also other quite well known names as supporting roles, like Karen Gillan (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle etc), Masi Oka (Heroes TV series), Rachel Brosnahan (Marvelous Mrs. Maisel TV series etc) and country singer Reba McEntire. Aside from Masi Oka's character, the rest did not give too much impression. And if only Rachel Brosnahan who played Walter's mom was given a little bit extra scene, it might have left a stronger emotional tie with Walter.
Overall it was a movie just for fun. A movie which was entertaining enough to be seen during the Christmas holiday. But do not expect any originality from this film as mostly we could guess the whole plot, but if we bypass all that and just focus on the fun side, then this would be enjoyable.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment