BIRD WATCHING

Merry Christmas everybody!

Now in theaters:

“Why can’t Hollywood make something original?”

This is one of the more common complaints about the movies; you hear it most often when a remake, or “reboot,” of a classic film or a familiar TV show is announced. The short answer is, of course, why should Hollywood start now? But another answer is that every once in a while, for better or worse, Hollywood does make something original. And the new animated comedy Spies in Disguise is an example.

At least I think it is. I’ve never heard of another spy adventure in which the super-cool hero gets transformed into a pigeon.

Suave, wisecracking super-spy Lance Sterling (voiced by Will Smith, essentially reprising his Men in Black role) is the bigshot star operative of a secret intelligence agency headquartered under the reflecting pool in D.C. He’s a pure, unflappable, unstoppable winner, who insists he only flies solo, until he runs afoul of a glowering super-villain (Ben Mendelsohn) with a robot hand, who tricks him out of a high-tech weapon and uses a projection of Lance’s own face over his to frame him for the theft of the item. Soon Lance is on the run, with an Internal Affairs team led by a relentless agent (Rashida Jones) in pursuit.

He ends up with only one ally: A boyish young gadget inventor named Walter Dockett (Tom Holland). Walter is a bit like “Q” in the Bond films, except that he’s just a kid, and he’s committed to developing gadgets that are non-lethal, like grenades that explode into clouds of glitter which form into images of sweet little kittens, thus distracting the bad guys with the undeniable force of cuteness.

It need hardly be said, Walter's gizmos are met with skepticism and disdain by the macho Lance. Nonetheless, he and Walter, who has been fired the same day that Lance got in trouble, end up as action-movie buddies and travel the word in search of the bad guy, after Lance is inadvertently changed, by one of Walter’s inventions…into a pigeon.

That’s right, for much of the film Lance is unhappily trapped in the form of a stereoscopically-eyed bluish pigeon. Walter tries to sell Lance on the excellence of a pigeon as a secret agent’s cover—they’re everywhere, after all, in cities all over the world, and nobody pays any attention to them—but Lance, of course, is having none of it. Wild action scenes ensue.

Spies in Disguise is based on a 2009 short film by Lucas Martell with the much better title Pigeon: Impossible. It’s even sillier than ‘60s-era spy spoofs like The Last of the Secret Agents and Matchless. But it works; there were belly laughs from both children and grown-ups all around me in the theater throughout the screening I saw. And I may have contributed a couple of them.

It’s also a visually snappy film, with brilliant, intricately worked out slapstick gags and chases, and characters—like the pigeons—that are funny just to look at. The voice cast works well, with Karen Gillan and DJ Khaled adding amusing bits as the Internal Affairs agent’s entourage. And there’s an unusually strong, funky soundtrack.

About all that limits Spies in Disguise are the same obligatory elements that limit the vast majority of animated kid movies: the misunderstood, orphaned misfit who must overcome adversity; the tough guy who must learn to be part of a team. Despite the movie’s welcome and imaginative eccentricity, this standard template can still be detected at its foundation. So, come to think of it: Why can’t Hollywood make something original?

SOCKO BOX OFFICE

“The characterizations were amusing, but they always reminded me of bad carpeting.” Thus did a curmudgeonly friend of mine recently explain why he never liked the Muppets.

It is, to put it mildly, a minority opinion. The Muppets are one of those rare acts that operates squarely in the mainstream of wholesome, family-approved entertainment, yet has just the right edge of pure, irresistible silliness to make them hip—& maybe the faintest hint of kinkiness as well, as in Gonzo’s masochism & his seemingly polygamist interest in chickens. Almost everybody, Your Humble Narrator included, loves the Muppets. Indeed, their low-tech, old-school showbiz tactility is one of the keys to their charm—many of us love them because they remind us of bad carpeting.

For the newest film version, however, the Muppets have been recast as underdogs, has-beens. The premise of The Muppets is that Kermit, Fozzie, Piggy, Animal et al are forgotten relics of the ‘80s. When Kermit, lonely behind the gates of his faded Bel-Air mansion, learns that a rotten one-percenter named Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) wants to tear down the old Muppet Studios to drill for oil, he gets together the old gang to put on a telethon to save them.

This formula Let’s-Put-On-Show plot is really secondary, however, to the story of Walter, a fanatical Muppets fan who is, manifestly, also a Muppet himself (voiced by Peter Linz). This is doubly odd because Walter’s brother Gary (Jason Segel, who also co-scripted, with Nicholas Stoller), is human, as is Gary’s girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams), as is everyone else we see in their smalltown home. So when the three of them travel to L.A. & get caught up in the Muppet’s adventures, Walter feels truly at home for the first time.

At one point Walter gushes to the Muppets that they give people the greatest gift, laughter, & the Muppets protest, pointing out at least two greater gifts. But the third-greatest gift is nothing to be sneezed at, & The Muppets delivers a generous dose of it. The screening audience with whom I saw the film received it rapturously; I enjoyed it greatly but I think it’s the third-greatest Muppet movie, after the sublime Muppet Christmas Carol of 1992 & the original 1979 effort, The Muppet Movie.

The script is laced with in-jokes & period references & parodies of dramatic clichés, genuinely witty but aimed more, perhaps, at nostalgic adults than at the kids in the audience, as are the many, many celebrity cameos. Also, the movie seems—and this isn’t a criticism I find myself handing down very often—a little talky.

Don’t get me wrong—the upsides of The Muppets far outweigh these minor reservations. They include: Cooper, who’s pretty droll in the obligatory bad guy part, & who delivers a sensational rap; the new songs, by Bret McKenzie of Flight of the Conchords, working in the style, if not quite on the level, of Paul Williams, & the old songs, including “The Rainbow Connection” & Piero Umiliani’s unshakeable “Mahna Mahna.” This movie even found, at last, a redemptive good use for that horribly catchy ‘80s embarrassment “We Built This City.”

Finally, there’s Kermit, pained & sheepishly idealistic as ever. Steve Whitmire still reproduces Jim Henson’s voice characterization flawlessly, & whoever actually operates Kermit gets extraordinarily fine shades of feeling on his face. Many a highly-paid non-amphibian star doesn’t have nearly as expressive a pan.