Spy Kids feels like a chemistry experiment that’s been conducted by a high schooler. On one hand, Robert Rodiguez (who wrote and directed the film) collected all of the proper ingredients: action, humor, mid-level stars, nifty gadgets, and wackily colorful villains that coincidentally lend themselves to licensed product. On the other, he mixed them together in a soulless brew that caused each element to clumsily clump at different levels.
Billing itself as a “James Bond for kids”, the plot centers around two enemy spies (Carla Gugino and Antonio Banderas, continuing his downward career spiral here) who fell in love and retired 10 years ago to raise two kids, Junie and Carmen. The kids think their parents are uncool dorks and have their own problems to worry about: Junie has warts all over his hands and Carmen is a bossy older sister who has started wetting her bed again at an advanced age.
While Carmen longs to run away to Ibizia, Junie is dreamily obsessed with a Pee-Wee-Hermanesque TV show starring Floop (Alan Cumming). The parents find out that some of their fellow agents have been kidnapped and accept a special mission to rescue them. They happily don their spy outfits and clamber into a product placement to drive off and rescue their colleagues.
They’re betrayed by their contact, Teri Hatcher, and kidnapped by Floop, who in turn is being manipulated by his number two man Minion (Tony Shalhoub) into building five hundred robot replicas of children of powerful political figures around the world. Problem is, the robots are as obtuse as the plot that I just described; they need the “Third Brain” to make them smart.
In the meantime, the kids are sent off to a safe house by Cheech Marin, where, after consuming a few product placements, they discover the Third Brain and set off to rescue their parents before Minion can unleash the evil robots on the world and mutate their parents into cartoon characters for Floop’s TV show. (Don’t ask.)
Although the movie claims to be only 86 minutes, it feels like an eternity. It’s crammed with too many characters, too many gadgets, and too much pointless action. In addition to the half-dozen characters I mentioned above, there’s Robert Patrick as another evil mastermind, a brother who needs to be taught the meaning of family, and a George Clooney cameo.
Banderas and Gugino gamely choke their way through their lines; the child stars are uncharismatic and unappealing as they bicker throughout the movie. At a PG rating, the action seems too much for kids under 8 or 9 to take, but the humor seems to be too young for older kids to enjoy. Trying to appeal to everyone, it ultimately appeals to nobody.