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Super spy Lance Sterling (Will Smith) is a daredevil agent, who is nattily dressed 24/7, carries a lot of hidden weapons on his person, loves exploding stuff a lot and always finishes his mission with a flourish, never failing to save the day. He's somewhat arrogant about the whole thing and treats all the other people working for his super-secret agency as being his minions.

Walter Beckett (Tom Holland) is a weapons scientist working for the agency who wants to bring out a line of non-fatal gadgets. Their paths get crossed and Walter ends up transforming Lance into a pigeon. Killian (Ben Mendelsohn) is a powerful terrorist having a bionic arm and a tech with disguise capabilities. He wants to target every secret agent there is to avenge past wrongs and it's now left to Lance, Walter and their avian friends to defeat the villain and save their Afdah comrades...

The film is based on Lucas Martell's animated short Pigeon: Impossible (2009). As such, it's a spoof of every Mission Impossible film and every Bond film you've seen. The face change, for instance, is the hallmark of MI films. The bionic arm and the avenging villain can easily fit in any Bond movie. What's different is that instead of going for a solution where everything and everyone gets blown up, the film looks at pacifist ways to counter super villains. It preaches peace and non-violence and argues that good and evil are just terms. In trying to counter violence with violence, it's people who end up getting hurt. Hence, one should look beyond textbook solutions and find out ways which do minimum damage to everyone concerned.

The film makes use of buddy movie tropes as well, pitting Lance's flying solo routine against Walters' faith in teamwork. Though the formula has become so much used by now that we can predict the twists a mile off. The animation is imaginative indeed. The car chase sequence where Lance tries to steer his gadget-filled supercar in his pigeon avatar keeps you in the splits. Another sequence has a flock of pigeons rescuing Walter from certain death. And only in a kids movie would we see pink glitter, kitten videos and bubble gum being used to take out the bad guys.

All-in-all, Spies In Disguise is the perfect Christmas movie having something for everyone. It offers a unique spoof on spy films, packs in a powerful message and is graced with the star power of Will Smith and Tom Holland to boot. What more can you ask for, really?