Secret Agency - Blu-ray

Movie: Actually, she would love to be a simple teenager. But No. 83 (Hailee Steinfeld) is part of a top-secret government project that trains kids to be real fighting machines. And as such, she is strictly forbidden from socializing and living a normal life. But that changes when No. 83 is sent by her instructor Hardman (Samuel L. Jackson) on a dangerous mission to capture terrorist Victoria Fox (Jessica Alba). She succeeds, but falls to her presumed death during the mission. At least that's what Hardman believes, and No. 83 has no intention of convincing him otherwise. She takes this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to start a new life. As exchange student Megan Walsh, she goes to live with a family in the small town of Newton. Here she wants to experience normal high school life and enjoy it to the fullest. It's just too bad that high school is nothing like she's seen in the movies. And the fact that she believed that her cover could be maintained for a long time in times of YouTube was probably also a little naive and could now have deadly consequences for her and her new friends.

In Secret Agency director Kyle Newman (Fanboys) mixes elements of agent thrillers like Hannah or Salt with motifs of the classic teen comedy. With Hailee Steinfeld (Pitch Perfect 2), Sophie Turner (Game of Thrones), Thomas Mann (Project X), as well as Samuel L. Jackson and Jessica Alba, he was able to sign a quite prominent ensemble, which then also displays a pleasant joy of acting. With a lot of humor Newman takes the clichés of the genres on the chin, without pulling them completely into ridicule. Especially No. 83's first attempts to fit into the school routine based on various teen comedies she has studied are extremely amusing. And the brief glimpses of the children's education at Prescott Academy also offer great entertainment value.

Unfortunately, towards the end, the production increasingly falls into the clichés it had so charmingly teased earlier. The finale in particular loses a lot of bite as a result and turns out all too well-behaved. But Jessica Alba as a ruthless terrorist or Sophie Turner as a nasty bitch are just a great pleasure and comfort over some weaknesses in the last act. The occasional action sequences and fight scenes are relatively well-behaved and unfortunately reveal very poor green-screen effects at times. But the target audience, to whom the film is primarily directed, will probably not find this disturbing.

Secret Agency is an entertaining action comedy, in which especially girls between 12 and 16 years can have a lot of fun, but which also offers enough entertainment potential for an entertaining home cinema evening for boys. If you like movies like Girls Club or Bring it on, you should definitely grab this one. Worth seeing!

Picture + Sound: Picture and sound quality of the Blu-ray offer exactly what can be expected from a current action comedy. The picture is absolutely clean and even otherwise the visuals leave a consistently positive impression with a coherent, powerful color mix and good overall sharpness. The audio is present in a very lively Dolby Digital 5.1DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix in places, with the music or various sound effects providing decent surround dynamics every now and then. Good!

Extras: As a bonus, the Blu-ray has, in addition to the trailer, some promo interviews with the cast and crew to offer. The most interesting interview here is the one with the director, as there is also a little insight into the filming to see here.

Conclusion: Secret Agency makes use of a really nice idea. Crossing a typical high school movie with secret service action offers plenty of potential, which director Kyle Newman uses quite well. Only in some scenes the whole thing turns out unnecessarily silly or a bit too smooth. Overall, though, this teen comedy is a lot of fun. The Blu-ray presents the film in good picture and sound quality. As a bonus, there are some promo interviews, but they don't reveal more than what kind of music the fictional characters probably have on their iPods. Nevertheless, that's still enough overall for a convincing: recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp