Spy Kids

Mi Familia es Espia

"Once upon a time there was a celebrated master spy, as cunning as she was beautiful. Her mission: assassinate a rival secret agent. Her target: a suave super sleuth, as dangerous as he was dashing. When their eyes met, guns were not drawn, hearts were broken. A passionate love was born that day and they were soon wed. But the wedding celebration was interrupted by evil arch villains, intent on destroying the happy couple, who were even more powerful together than apart. In order to survive, they were forced to retire from the active spy game. Eventually, a daughter and son were born and they all settled into domestic bliss, the perfect family, living happily, if not excitingly, ever after ... "

With this opening flashback, giddy in it's childlike vision of a thrillingly romantic espionage escapade, the stage is set for Spy Kids, the first family film released by Dimension Films (responsible for such hits as the Scream trilogy and it's spoofy take-off Scary Movie), the genre subsidiary of Miramax Films, itself owned by the Walt Disney Company.

Comfortable in their square suburban existence, former sleuths Gregorio and Ingrid Cortez (Antonio Banderas and Carl Gugino) spend their days worrying about their children, Carmen and Juni (Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara), and their nights as covert cloak and dagger consultants. As the kids are facing typical school-age problems (bullies, peer pressure), Mr. and Mrs. Cortez are called back into active service when former comrades start mysteriously disappearing. Being a tad rusty back out in the field, they uncover too late an even more sinister plot in motion and are quickly captured. Meanwhile, back at Casa de Cortez, Carmen and Juni discover that not only are mom and dad international spies, but that it is up to them to go to the rescue.

With an arsenal of nifty cool gadgets at their disposal, they must overcome sibling squabbles, double agents, condescending adults and an outrageous villain bent on no less then world domination. (As if a villain in such an over-the-top fantasy such as this would aspire to anything less.) Like a megalomaniacal Pee-Wee Herman, Tony Award-winning Broadway actor Alan Cumming plays Fagin Floop (note the nod to Dickens' classic Pied Piper figure), host of an insanely popular kiddie TV show who's trippy visuals and Toys 'R Us-ready creatures (think of an even-more hyped-up Telletubbies) is a front to control innocent young minds all over the globe. (Hmm ... I wonder if this explains the oddly appealing nature of Barney the Dinosaur...) In his secret lair (a twisted seaside castle that appears to be designed by the architectural firm of Burton, Dahl and Geisel), Floop is in the process of creating an army of robot children, the "spy kids" of the title. With blank expressions, mop tops and aluminum Battlestar Galactica fashions, they are the Children of the Damned for the digital age.

While the basic premise is quite simple (one wonders why no one has contemplated such a high concept before: James Bond Junior!), the film distinguishes itself with it's sly allusions to spy movies of the past. For example, Floop's minion (Tony Shalhoub) goes by the name "Minion" and the femme fatale is played by former Bond girl Teri Hatcher.

Not since the underrated 1995 feature My Family (Mi Familia) have we seen such a strong, positive Latino family unit on screen as the Cortezes. Antonio Banderas is best when he plays larger-then-life fantasy characters as he does here and in past films such as Desperado and The Mask of Zorro. Carla Gugino (formerly of Spin City) is equally charming as his better half; they smartly avoid the kid flick cliché of parents as overbearing ninnies.

Child actors have often been misdirected in such high tech adventure spectacles, coming off either annoyingly shrill (Jonathan Ke Quan as Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) or frustratingly bland (Jake Lloyd as Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode I-The Phantom Menace). Thankfully, as these junior g-men, twelve year-old Alexa Vega and eight yea-old Daryl Sabara are not your typically cloying Tinseltown tots; they offer naturally winning performances that are the spirited center of the film.

Spy Kids auteur Robert Rodriguez (who not only wrote and directed the film, but was also the F/X supervisor, sound mixer, film editor and camera operator) burst onto the indie scene almost ten years ago with the low budget, ultra-violent El Mariachi. He followed that up with the gory vampire B-flick From Dusk Till Dawn and the bigger budget Mariachi "remake" Desperado, also starring Banderas. While it's quite a leap to go from gunslingers and blood-suckers to family friendly fare, he ably adapts his nuevo Latino style to a film aimed at the Pokémon crowd. From it's crayon-colored settings to the slow-mo strut of our heroes (this time under four-feet tall), Rodriguez obviously relishes reliving these childhood fantasies through the eyes of his young protagonists. A wise decision, as most films aimed at children have a jaded, adult sensibility, talking down to the characters, therefore the target audience as well. Apparently Rodriquez is still in touch with his "inner spy kid".

Toon Talk Rating: B
Running Time: 90 minutes
Now in theaters.

Toon Talk Trivia:

• Former Oingo Boingo front man and prolific film scorer Danny Elfman (Dick Tracy, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Good Will Hunting) composed the "Spy Kids Theme" and well as "Floop's Song", sung by Floop himself, Alan Cumming.
• Cumming also played Rooster Hannigan in the recent Wonderful World of Disney television production of the Broadway musical Annie.

-- Originally posted April 3, 2001