Spy×Family CODE: White Movie Review

Due to time constraints, I’m limiting my review of  Spy×Family CODE: White to just the movie story. I’ll do a full blu-ray review later. 🙇‍♂️

–> Buy SPY x FAMILY CODE: White – Movie from Amazon.com!

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis

Yor Forger’s coworkers discuss infidelity and the signs of it. Although her marriage to Loid “Twilight” Forger is one of convenience, she worries that Loid is cheating when she spots him (innocently) with another woman.  When Anya comes home with a cooking assignment, Loid decides they should go on a trip to save Project Strix. Yor thinks this is another sign of cheating, even though she’s inviting on this family outing with adopted telepath daughter, Anya.

The Forgers travel north via train. Anya, through the dog Bond’s vision of the future, finds and accidentally consumes a special chocolate, which is discovered by two military agents. After Yor rescues Anya, the Forgers end up at a restaurant that serves meremere dessert, so Anya can sample it for her assignment. A military colonel named Snidel takes the last slice from Anya. Loid gets all the ingredients but one.

Anya sneaks away to get the last ingredient, but gets caught by the military. She’s taken to an air battleship, commanded by Snidel. Loid uses a museum plane to go after her, so Yor sneaks on board. Snidel orders the plane shot down, so Loid crashes it and heads to find Anya. Yor also leaves, but is discovered. Since they can’t seem shoot her, Snidel sends a cyborg to deal with her.

Meanwhile, the air battleship is ablaze while Snidel’s henchmen try to get Anya to poop, since the chocolate she ate contained a microfilm. Loid uses his disguises to eventually overcome Snidel, while Yor overcomes the cyborg. They reunite with Anya and safely land the abandoned craft before it crashes into a city. When they return home, Anya’s assignment changes somewhat, so the family plan another trip.

Thoughts/Review

I really hate to say this, but compared to the regular Spy×Family material, Spy×Family CODE: White came up quite short for me.

Going Through the Motions

The biggest flaw in Spy×Family CODE: White is that everything happens to service the plot. To get things started, we get a BORING monologue to educate folks on the various characters. Surely this could have been done a better way.

Next is the requirement to give everyone from the series lines. As such, there’s a lot of wasted time with unimportant stuff. The writer of this movie has a checklist of not only the characters that need lines, but things they need to do. None of these lines or things advance the characters in any way. Indeed, most of the side characters could be removed and the movie would not change in any meaningful way.

The problem even affects Yor, Loid, and Anya. For Loid, it started with the premise that politics meant he’d be thrown off Project Strix. So he had to do something to prove he’s still the man. Then later, the plot needs Loid to take on new identities, so he magics them up, uniform and all, even though there’s no way he’d know what masks to have at the ready.

For Yor, they had the silly element of her assuming Loid was cheating on her, even though all evidence pointed against that. She’s a bit of an airhead, but she’s not that dumb.

As for Anya, there’s a moment when the plot needs her to break free from her gag and bonds. So naturally, this just magically happens when the time is right. Terrible writing.

Some Mindless Fun

While the plot of Spy×Family CODE: White didn’t make sense to me (a military squad goes rogue to resume the war between East and West), there was some mindless fun to be found along the way. I got a kick out of seeing Loid take down the scam booth guy at the fair they attended.

Indeed, all of the family moments in the movie were fun to watch. First there was the train trip to the north. Then there was the fair as well as the fancy restaurant. Then when all three reunite on board the burning air battleship, there’s a bit of fun there as they work together to spare the town.

What this movie made me desire is an advancement in Yor’s, Loid’s, and Anya’s character arc so that there’s no secret between them. Then they work together to do things. I imagine that could be quite fun. But that’s not in the cards as I figure the moment they learn each other’s secrets, we are in the final arc of the manga.

Toilet Humor and Other Funnies

I’m a man. As such, scatological humor, especially the need to drop a deuce, can be quite funny to me. Heck, my avatar is taken from such an episode from Those Who Hunt Elves 2. As such, I couldn’t help but laugh from the scenes in Spy×Family CODE: White where Anya needed to take a dump, but didn’t dare allow herself to do so. The movie really milks this for all its worth.

Another humorous moment that stood out to me was when Anya was captured for the first time. Anyone who’s read the manga or seen its anime adaptation knows that Yor will no doubt show up. Nevertheless, when Yor pulled open the locked door on the train without effort, I couldn’t help but chuckle. And then there was the beatdown that we heard but didn’t see, which was also amusing.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Let me wrap up my review of this movie with some final thoughts.

• Art and animation wise, things look pretty crisp. Most of the action scenes come off pretty well. The one exception comes from Loid’s fight with Snidel. Inexplicably, the art/animation style abandoned the natural color pallet of the scene and went with some artsy-fartsy style. Made no sense to me.
• The end of the movie has the Forgers immediately go on another trip, this time to warmer climates. I suppose the implication here is that this could be the setting for another movie.
• The carnival the Forgers visited looked like something you’d find in America. However, the focus on the shooting game and the Ferris Wheel made that part of the movie feel like “Japan in another setting” as these two elements are frequently portrayed in anime and manga.

In the end, there’s a certain level of entertainment with Spy×Family CODE: White, but it fails to reach the standards lain out by the manga, simply because check boxes have to be marked, and plot demands things be done. As such, it is worth a watch for sure, but your mileage may vary on rewatches.