It's really a rip off of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and was quite disappointing. Walter is essentially like if Flint and Sam had a baby but more obnoxious with his can't-shut-his-mouth, self-righteous attitude. There's even some elements in the story taken from cloudy like the whole invention goes wrong thing. I was expecting it to at least be average because characters barring Walter didn't seem bad but it turned out worse than I thought. The characters are two dimensional with predictable arcs and Walter had no flaws so no character development besides a predictable bonding with Lance. Even the pigeons are one-dimensional. It's one of the top 10 or 15 worst animated films of the decade even if it came out at the tail end. Avoid it, it's so overrated.

_Spies in Disguise_ has a genuinely interesting methodology put forth revolving around the core ideals of teamwork, and non-lethal measures. Or at least it has that in the opening 5 minutes and closing 10. In between it has a pigeon instead. I don't mean "The pigeon thing is so ridiculous that it distracts from it", I mean they drop it altogether for the lion's share of the runtime because "WILL SMITH VOICES A PIGEON HAHAHA!" And sure those early concepts were laid on a little heavy while they were there, but this is a kids' movie, nuance isn't mandatory. It also didn't help that literally every single supporting character (but most especially Ben Mendelsohn's "Robot Hand") were far more likeable than either of the leads. Buuut it was okay. Okay. At a stretch. Okay. At best. More than anything though, I just want to know if somebody goes into this without any idea of what the story is actually about, does it hit you as hard as the trailer did? Like is this _From Dusk till Dawn_ for pre-teens? _Final rating:★★ - Had some things that appeal to me, but a poor finished product._