AKA: 劇場版 SPY×FAMILY CODE: White

Genre: Comedy/Action

Length: Movie, 110 minutes

Distributor: Currently licensed by Sony Pictures.

Content Rating: Pg-13 (Violence, poop.)

Related Series: Spy x Family TV series (2 seasons)

Also Recommended: Assassination Classroom

Notes: Based on manga by Tatsuya Endo, published by Shueisha

Rating:

Spy x Family: Code White

Synopsis

WISE, the spy organization Twilight/"Loid" works for, is threatening to take Operation Strix away from him over lack of progress. (Hardly surprising; nothing seems to have happened on THAT front for the whole Second Season of the TV series.) So Loid comes up with what I thought a rather longshot (and expensive!) plan to help the main stumbling block (Anya) get things moving again. But Anya's antics get her involved in a megalomaniac's scheme, and her "parents" have to rescue her. (Oh, AND save the world too, while they're at it.)

Review

Well, there are things we've come to expect from Spy x Family: that Anya's "mother", Yor, will have some over-the-top fight scene; that her "father" Loid will be stalwart and cooly competent (aided by his ability to disguise himself -HERE seemingly instantly, and I have NO idea where he got the supplies to do it - as well as by some solid right hooks); and that Anya herself will somehow prevail, often due to some extraordinary good luck, despite her questionable choices. (Oh, and we expect to get some more of those outrageous facial expressions that partly define Anya's character.)

Another perennial Spy x Family tradition is to let everyone in the continuing cast have at least a little screen time, so let's start with the Secondary Characters Scorecard for THIS installment. Folks who don't like Yuri will be pleased that he only has two brief appearances, and doesn't really participate in the main storyline (though he WANTED to.) WISE agent Nightfall (Fiona Frost), Twilight's chief fangirl, does get to play an important role, but the business she has to attend to in all this at least doesn't leave her much time to casually flirt with Loid. (She IS still holding out hope to replace Yor as his "wife", however.) And poor Franky may literally have the last words in this film (AFTER the credits!), but they're not necessarily happy ones. I personally think this guy's overdue for a break.

Our chief villain this time is named Colonel Snidel, and you can tell he's a depraved fiend because not only does he want to start World War III, but, even WORSE, he steals little girls' desserts. (I was never clear exactly how, or WHY, he wanted to start WW III, but in the Intelligence business everything's on a Need To Know basis, and I guess it wasn't felt that we really Needed To Know that.)

The main noticeable step-up from a TV to a movie budget is in the final battle on the villain's CG-animated airship. And speaking of step-ups, long-term viewers of the series will have noticed Yor's extreme strength and agility have grown from kind of a joke in the beginning (it's really not necessary for her to be THIS strong to do her job), to major shounen battles in the Second TV Season and in THIS installment too. And as her strength has ventured more and more into the superhero, she's had to be pitted against more and more formidable adversaries (to keep the fights worth watching), and boy do they give her a doozy of an opponent THIS time during the airship showdown. Honestly, the next step for her would HAVE to be a crossover with the Marvel Comics Universe; I think she can already lay low at least half of The Avengers.

Yor's more cheerful, "ditzy" side takes a worried turn here though, as, primed by conversations with her fellow Office Ladies, she begins to worry that Loid might be "unfaithful", even though their "arrangement" has always been a sham, and physical initimacy has never been a part of it (so far as we know.) Nevertheless, she's obviously become attached to him; while Loid, for his part, seems to want to continue Operation Strix because it's his excuse to continue on with his "wife" and "child." The Cruise Ship Arc events are referenced at one point, so we know this one's chronologically after those events, and things were already moving in that direction; but I'd say Yor is maybe more committed to the "marriage" than Loid is. With women vs. men, I guess that's nothing new.

Anya has a scatological Flight of Fancy that might have been too tasteless for the TV series- and which I thought just went on too long. It's a "desperation" sequence that one might think funny or not (I would guess that your likelihood of being amused by this is in inverse relation to your age), though it certainly does invoke some Anya expressions we haven't seen before- and of course, as noted at the beginning of the review, Anya's outrageous expressions have always been one of Spy x Family's main draws.

This one delivers some great bits- Yor's fight is thrilling, while being much less prolonged than her Season 2 battle. But I thought Loid's plan had one tremendous flaw- it depended on ANYA's competence to succeed in the end (and if Yor has to "help" her with that final part of it, she's SO DOOMED.) Yes, this one caters to all Spy x Family "greatest hits", but I wished it had more than just those (Season 2 had a little more variety); I never did understand how the villain stood to gain from his plot (or for that matter, exactly HOW he planned to induce WW III in the first place); and one of Loid's disguises stretched credulity even more than Yor's strength does. Or maybe old folks like me just don't have as much of a sweet tooth anymore. — Allen Moody

Recommended Audience: MPAA Rating PG-13. Violence, and (literal) potty humor.