Pequenos Espiões

This was a silly kids' adventure story but still fun the younger ones and for adults, thanks to colorful scenes, great special effects, decent humor and a nice family tone to it. The kids are alright, except the girl is a little bossy, and the villains aren't too nasty. This also looks very good on DVD.

Included in the color and characters are "the thumb people" who were especially fun to watch.

The only problem I found with it is the last 30 minutes in which it got too silly and emphasized (typical Hollywood) how the kids can do the job better than the adults, which a ludicrous film cliché. However, overall "family unity" gets a big boost in this here, even in the end, and that good message is probably a big reason this movie was such a success.

Gregorio and Ingrid Cortez are ex-spies who were at the top of their game until they met, married and decided to retire for their own mutual safety. Years later they have normal lives and have children who know nothing of any of this. When Gregorio learns of former colleagues vanishing, he looks into it, only for him and Ingrid to be captured by the evil Floop, whose children's television puppets are really mutants developed as part of building a private army for Lisp. With their parents gone and the alarm raised, Carmen and Juni learn the truth and are suddenly faced with having to rescue their parents.

You shouldn't come to this movie expecting it to be serious or logical because it really isn't. Instead it is silly, goofy and really very daft but still quite good fun for slightly older children and also for adults. The plot is pretty much summed up by the title insofar as you really need to know what is going on because it doesn't make much sense. The film is really about the kids becoming spies and playing with gadgets etc on their way to becoming heroes of a sort. It never takes itself too seriously and it draws humour from this approach well, making it easy to relax and watch because, yes it's silly, but at least it knows it is silly. The Floop creations are too silly to appeal to adults but will probably provide some laughs for kids but generally the film gets the tone right for both groups.

Rodriguez directs with his usual approach and I quite enjoyed the effect it had here because it does suit the silly, hyper material (which he also wrote). The effects are mainly good and it should work for most kids in the way that older boys like their gadgets and fantasy video games. The cast did it for me as well, featuring as it did a lot of people who've worked with Rodriguez before. Banderas and Gugino are both sexy and cool in the parental roles but it is Vega and Sabara who lead the film. Neither of them are typically "cute kids" and it helped me enjoy the film for them to be quite natural and buy into the material. Support is surprisingly classy and most of them work. I didn't like Cumming at all but that was more to do with his character; Shalhoub was OK, Hatcher was fun, Cheech pops up briefly, Patrick has a small role, Trejo is ever reliable and George Clooney puts in a small but amusing appearance.

Overall this is not a great film because it all nonsense but then, as a kids' film, it doesn't matter so much. The energy, pace and sense of fun covers up for the daft central plot and nobody seems to be taking it seriously. Surprisingly fun to watch, even for adults and worth a look.

This film takes a child's cartoonish idea of a spy and runs with it, leaning into a charming campiness that brought joy to my heart. As an adult watching this film, I am impressed by the directing in this film: great performances and expressive, well thought out camera-work. This, combined with excessively creative production design (which clearly had passionate people behind it) creates a world that, frankly, feels like it was genuinely thought up by a children, albeit a team of extremely creative and funny ones with an impressive understanding of filmmaking. I generally judge children's films for how well i can enjoy them, as an adult, since any film that has to pander to a child mind to succeed is lacking an essential intellectual, critically examinable element. This film half succeeds at that, while also clearly and specifically pandering to children. It's like a live-action kid's cartoon, and the director/cinematographer did a great job at achieving that specific aesthetic.

I often struggle when evaluating children's movies, because I am not a child. But the sheer creativity of this film, and how competently made it is in every department-art design, cinematography, directing, writing, score, everything-makes Spy Kids, undeniably, a work of art.

Robert Rodriguez is not the first person you'd suggest to make a children's film. As entertaining as 'Desperado', 'The Faculty' and 'From Dusk Till dawn' are, you wouldn't line them up alongside 'Toy Story 2' and 'The Jungle Book' for good, old-fashioned family entertainment. Yet, as this energetic, light-hearted Bondesque spoof proves, Rodriguez has the talent to turn his hand to just about anything, and inject it with the suspense and adrenalin that are his trademark.

From the gloriously OTT opening scene (which tells the story of how two agents sent to kill each other fall in love and settle down) to the last second, 'Spy Kids' doesn't miss a trick. The obligatory gizmos, mad villains and dastardly plot to take over the world are all there, along with a star cast all playing their roles with tongues firmly in cheek. The action/humour mix is extremely well-balanced too, with some hilarious visual gags sitting within a sharp script and Banderas, in particular, revels taking a sly swipe at his normal 'strong yet silent Latino' image. Yet, refreshingly for a children's film, it's never patronising, never obvious, and genuinely original in places (soldiers made of thumbs, secret agents transformed into tellytubby-type TV characters - imagine Goldeneye-meets-Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory-meets-Any Tim Burton film and you'll be close). In truth, some of the surreal moments and the more graphic effects may get a little too much for younger kids at times, but these moments are few and far between.

Ok, it's a 'U' certificate and you may well have to sit through the trailer for 'See Spot Run', but don't let that put you off. This is one of the better films you'll see this year, and the best out over Easter by quite a way. Go and have some fun.

8/10

"Spy Kids" is one heck of a movie. Never have I seen a kiddie flick come along which is so clean, and yet still so entertaining at the same time. This odd blend of one of the best (The Matrix) and worst (Baby Geniuses) movies of 1999 is surprisingly exciting for something so "PG", and director and writer Robert Rodriguez (From Dusk Till Dawn) manages to create loads of fun while still keeping the violence level down.

He manages to do all this by being incredibly inventive with his special effects. "Spy Kid's" is a visual fun house of ideas which are all so playfully intuned with kids and their level of interest. He comes up with things such as movable thumb people and floors that fall apart like puzzle pieces. Rodriguez also has a lot of fun with this topic, putting in loads of high tech equipment and transportation, which offer kids and adults an incredible ride which is most always played for humor and thrills.

The basic set up for "Spy Kids" is this. Gregorio (Antonio Banderas) and Ingrid (Carla Gugino) were both spies working for different agencies, when a "hit" put out on each other brings them closer together. They decide to put away the spy work and live normal lives as husband and wife, and soon father and mother.

But the perfect family they dream about is far from. Their kids are keeping secrets from them, a trait from their former job that they feel they have passed on to their children. Their daughter Carmen (Alexa Vega) is skipping school, while Juni (Daryl Sabara) is being bullied at school and instead of telling his parents, just makes up a couple of imaginary friends.

They see how their past lives have affected their children, but before they can correct their wrong, their past catches up with them. They are thrown back into the spy game to investigate the capture of several other spies, but only end up being captured themselves.

The culprit also just happens to be Juni's favorite televison star, Fegan Floop (Alan Cumming). Floop is after a brain prototype that Gregorio created years ago. If he can implant that into the heads of his robot and mutant henchmen, nothing can stop him from taking over the world and becoming the number one rated show on TV. But his other human henchmen Minion (played dastardly well by Tony Shalhoub) has other plans. Back home, the feuding siblings must learn to work together in order to save their parents and the world as they are tossed into the spy game as well.

It seems as if the best kids movies always have a family-like theme to them, and "Spy Kids" is no exception. Much of this movie is exciting, but then there are those other parts, which are to cuteness what Charlie's Angels was to sexy clad women. Some may accuse Rodriguez of turning corny on us all of a sudden, but luckily he is also working with some very funny material here, as well as with newcomer Daryl Sabara.

His partner Alexa Vega also comes off very strong in her role as his sister. Together they are a very good crime fighting team, and I look forward to seeing them in upcoming sequels. Alan Cumming is also very good, turning in an absent minded Willy Wonka style performance that also fits in very well with Rodriguez's style for this movie, which seems to be based largely around an amusement park surrounding a James Bond movie.

His film may be corny for older kids, but this is for the young ones and chances are you will never find a movie as decent and fun for them as this one is for a long time. Out of four stars, Spy Kids definitely scores a three.