The world’s greatest spy, Lance Sterling (Will Smith) is strictly a one-man operation. He relies on his wits, devilish charm, fighting skills and the deadly hi-tech kit provided by a small factory of gadget inventors. Walter Beckett (Tom Holland) is one of these inventors, a starryeyed idealist who believes grenades that blast glitter and project giant holographic kittens can be just as effective as weapons that kill and maim. Lance fundamentally disagrees. His first encounter with Walter is not promising, but it’s the beginning of a partnership that will change Lance’s life, not to mention his entire genetic code: Walter has invented a serum that can turn a human into a pigeon. A bizarre lab mishap causes Lance to turn into a pigeon, and there appears to be some sort of issue concerning the availability of an antidote. So pigeon-Lance – grumpily complaining all the time about the appalling existential indignity of being a pigeon – has to work with Walter in a much more demeaningly submissive way than before.

They have to take on the sinister mastermind Killian (Ben Mendelsohn) who has an evil bionic claw instead of a hand – a symbol of the evil potential of technology that Walter has made it his life’s work to avoid. But Killian has managed to slander Lance as a traitor, and now his agency handler Jenkins (Reba McEntire) and internal affairs agent Marcy (Rashida Jones) have to bring in someone who they now believe is a bad guy gone awol.

There are some decent laughs and fun as Smith and Holland provide the bickering dialogue accompaniment for Lance and Walter, the ill-matched duo who fight the forces of darkness in locations ranging from Venice to Washington DC.

As with so many family animations right now, we felt that the script stays on the safe side, with fewer smart lines and ironic gags than we might have wished for, but this is a good-natured entertainment.

– Compilation