Film Review - Spies in Disguise
Mar. 25th, 2026 07:21 pmI can tell if you will like this film with one simple question - does the phrase "pigeon James Bond girl" thrill some part of your soul?
If the answer is no, this is not the film for you.
If it stirs or intrigues you, you will enjoy this film.
Ignoring the pigeons (we will not be ignoring the pigeons), it's a sci-fi spy film aimed at kids with a remarkably peaceful message. The message doesn't quite work in context, but I figured out the bad guy was going to be more than just a plain bad guy when I twigged that the reason he sounded familiar was because that was Ben Mendelsohn.
When a film has stock children's film message number 3 (violence is bad), it's the detail that matters. And there was lots of glorious, silly detail.
Most particularly involving pigeons.
Someone involved with this film has the same love of pigeons I have and it made me so happy. There was such detail in the pigeons, like the scene where they're flying off through St. Mark's Square.
There's also some child-friendly body horror in the transformation sequence and exactly how difficult it would to get used to thing like monocular vision if you were used to the binocular vision humans have. (And Sterling as a pigeon gets feathers that look like a bow-tie and I'm sorry, I am the target audience for the film).
It probably doesn't quite hold up as a good film, there isn't quite enough to it, and as I said, I don't think the message quite works but ... pigeon Bond girl goes a long way with me.

(Yes, I am annoyed I couldn't find the end credits bit with her which is really done James Bond credit style. Someone involved also knew their spy references.)
(Japan, US, Italy, Mexico for the film locations data)
If the answer is no, this is not the film for you.
If it stirs or intrigues you, you will enjoy this film.
Ignoring the pigeons (we will not be ignoring the pigeons), it's a sci-fi spy film aimed at kids with a remarkably peaceful message. The message doesn't quite work in context, but I figured out the bad guy was going to be more than just a plain bad guy when I twigged that the reason he sounded familiar was because that was Ben Mendelsohn.
When a film has stock children's film message number 3 (violence is bad), it's the detail that matters. And there was lots of glorious, silly detail.
Most particularly involving pigeons.
Someone involved with this film has the same love of pigeons I have and it made me so happy. There was such detail in the pigeons, like the scene where they're flying off through St. Mark's Square.
There's also some child-friendly body horror in the transformation sequence and exactly how difficult it would to get used to thing like monocular vision if you were used to the binocular vision humans have. (And Sterling as a pigeon gets feathers that look like a bow-tie and I'm sorry, I am the target audience for the film).
It probably doesn't quite hold up as a good film, there isn't quite enough to it, and as I said, I don't think the message quite works but ... pigeon Bond girl goes a long way with me.

(Yes, I am annoyed I couldn't find the end credits bit with her which is really done James Bond credit style. Someone involved also knew their spy references.)
(Japan, US, Italy, Mexico for the film locations data)