Spy School

Spy School is a really good movie. Although it doesn't share the science fiction special effects of Spy Kids, it has a similar appeal. The camera work and the lighting are excellent. The plot is not predictable; there is actually a mystery going on here that kids and adults will enjoy. The kid actors are wonderful. There's even some cool music, including two renditions of Macho Man. Of course what would a teenage spy caper be without some crawling through the ducts, but that's forgivable. This is a great movie to share with your children. Nothing less than innocent here, don't worry. The most violence is a gun than never shoots and a guy falling a few feet off a ladder. Otherwise this is perfect entertainment for the entire family.

There is this thing that amateur screenwriters do, and inept directors overlook: they forget how people actually talk. Elementary school children don't generally speak -- to each other, to parents, or to authority figures -- like they were reading passages from a Victorian-era novel. Stiff dialogue every once in a while can be overlooked... but when every... single... line... of... dialogue is cringeworthy, it leaves one stunned that the film's producers didn't just decide to turn "Spy School" (a/k/a "Doubting Thomas") into a parody (think "Airplane") and leave it at that. This cliché-riddled film is also very clumsy with its details; e.g., Did kids in 2008 really know who Joe Namath was? Would a coach only be addressing 8 of his players for his NFL pregame speech? Did kids in 2008 really use the word "crud?" Is it realistic (or even appropriate) for a teen girl to put the moves on a lead character who looks like he's about 9 years old? (In fact, the film seems to have been written with older teens in mind... again, pre-teens just don't act like they're super-concerned about painstakingly and properly enunciating every awkward syllable of the oh-so-long words and sentences they've been hired to regurgitate.) And the title? One-third of the way in to the film, and (mild spoiler) not a "spy" in sight. "Spy School" ("Doubting Thomas") is a tortuous watch.

This movie has it's flaws, but despite all that i enjoyed it. Forest Landis is a hoot and Anna Sophia Robb is as cute as can be as a tom boy. Not a great flick by any standard but it's still a fun flick. The teacher with the fake bee hive hair and the one armed phys ed teacher are just off the hook. Just relax and enjoy the ride.

Note to everyone on the cover the kid has all these cool gadgets on him and it looks like hes kid James Bond who goes to school to learn to be a spy. It is nothing like that. It's about a kid who lies all the time and in the end he learns that lying is bad and saves the world...by lying so.... yeah. Wasn't boring tho. Then again I was five when I watched it.

I won't get into the details, but this movie has the most ridiculous plot of any movie I've seen in years - even our 10-year old wasn't fooled by this story.

Reasonably good actors, actually - the kids, anyway, the adult actors didn't really deliver... but even with world class actors you couldn't have pulled off this one, so you can't really blame them.

Sheer amateur nonsense! Yikes!

I don't know how this movie received a 5.1 rating - since it has only received about 200 ratings, I can only guess the kids who acted in the movie asked all their friends to rate it.